“But what—” began Matthew.
Matthew never forgot that story. Out of the sordid setting of that room rose the wild head of Perigua, haloed dimly in the low-burning gas. Far out in street and alley groaned, yelled, and sang Harlem. The snore of the woman came fitfully from the next room, and Perigua talked.
Matthew had at first thought him an egotistic fool. But Perigua was no fool. He next put him down as an ignorant fanatic—but he was not ignorant. He was well read, spoke French and Spanish, read German, and knew the politics of the civilized world and current events surprisingly well. Was he insane? In no ordinary sense of the word; wild, irresponsible, impulsive, but with brain and nerves that worked clearly and promptly.
He had a big torn map of the United States on the wall with little black flags clustered over it, chiefly in the South.
“Lynchings,” he said briefly. “Lynchings and riots in the last ten years.” His eyes burned. “Know how to stop lynching?” he whispered.
“Why—no, except—”
“We know. Dynamite. Dynamite for every lynching mob.”
Matthew started and grew uneasy. “But,” he objected, “they occur sporadically-seldom or never twice in the same place.”
“Always a half dozen in Mississippi and Georgia. Three or four in South Carolina and Florida. There’s a lynching belt. We’ll blow it to hell with dynamite from airplanes. And then when the Ku Klux Klan meets some time, we’ll blow them up. Terrorism, revenge, is our program.”
“But—” began Matthew as sweat began to ooze.
Perigua waved. He was a man difficult to interrupt. “We’ve got to have messengers continuously traveling to join our groups together and spread news and concert action. The Pullman porters have a new union on old-fashioned lines. I’m trying to infiltrate with the brethren. See? Now you’re going to take a job as Inspector and run on a key route. Where are you running now?”
“New York to Atlanta.”
“Good! Boys don’t like running south. You can do good work there.”
“But just a moment—are the Negroes back of you ready for this—this—”
“To a man! That is, the real Negroes—the masses, when they know and understand—most of them are too ignorant and lazy—but when they know! Of course, the nabobs and aristocrats, the college fools and exploiters—they are like the whites.”
Matthew thought rapidly. He did not believe a word Perigua said, but the point was to pretend to believe it. He must see. He must investigate. It was wild, unthinkable, terrible. He must see this thing through.
III
“George!”
Inherently there was nothing wrong with the name. It was a good name. The “father” of his country and stepfather of Matthew had rejoiced in it. Thus Matthew argued often with himself.
“George!”
It was the name that had driven Matthew as a student away from the Pullman service. It was not really the name—it was the implications, the tone, the sort of bounder who rejoiced to use it. A scullion, ennobled by transient gold and achieving a sleeping-car berth, proclaimed his kingship to the world by one word:
“George!”
So it seemed at least to oversensitive Matthew. It carried all the meaner implications of menial service and largess of dimes and quarters. All this was involved and implied in the right not only to call a man by his first name, but to choose that name for him and compel him to answer to it.
So Matthew, the porter on the Atlanta car of the Pennsylvania Railroad, No. 183, and Southern Railroad, No. 33, rose in his smart and well-fitting uniform and went forward to the impatiently calling voice.
The work was not hard, but the hours were long, and the personal element of tact and finesse, of estimate of human character and peculiarities, must always be to the fore. Matthew had small choice in taking the job. He had arrived with little money and almost ragged. He had undertaken a mission, and after Perigua’s amazing revelation, he felt a compelling duty.
“Do you belong to the porters’ union?” asked the official who hired him.
“No, sir.”
“Going to join?”
“I had not given it a thought. Don’t know much about it.”
“Well, let me tell you, if you want your job and good run, keep out of that union. We’ve got our own company union that serves all purposes, and we’re going to get rid gradually of those radicals and Bolsheviks who are stirring up trouble.”
Matthew strolled over to the room where the porters were resting and talking. It was in an unfinished dark corner of the station under the stairs, with few facilities and no attempt to make it a club room even of the simplest sort.
“Say,” asked Matthew, “what about the union?”
No one answered. Some glanced at him suspiciously. Some went out. Only one finally sidled over and asked what Matthew himself thought of it, but before he could answer, another, passing, whispered in his ear, “Stool pigeon—keep your mouth.” Matthew looked after the trim young fellow who warned him. It was Matthew’s first sight of Jimmie.
The day had been trying. A fussy old lady had kept him trotting. A woman with two children had made him nurse; four Southern gentlemen gambling in the drawing-room had called him “nigger.” He stood by his car at Washington at 9:30 at night, his berths all made. To his delight Jimmie was on the next car, and they soon were chums. Jimmie was Joy. He was not much over twenty-five and so full of jokes and laughter that none, conductors, passengers, or porters, escaped the contagion of his good cheer. His tips were fabulous, and yet he was never merely servile or clownish. He just had bright, straight-eyed good humor, a quick and ready tongue; and he knew his job down to z. He was invaluable to the greenness of Matthew.
“Here comes a brownskin,” he whispered. “Hustle her to bed if she’s got
