He could hardly wait until Givens seated himself again before questioning him as to the girl’s identity. As the beefy song leader led the roaring of the popular closing hymn, he leaned toward the Imperial Grand Wizard and shouted: “Who is that tall golden-haired girl sitting in the front row? Do you know her?”
Rev. Givens looked out over the audience, craning his skinny neck and blinking his eyes. Then he saw the girl, sitting within twenty feet of him.
“You mean that girl sitting right in front, there?” he asked, pointing.
“Yes, that one,” said Matthew, impatiently.
“Heh! Heh! Heh!” chuckled the Wizard, rubbing his stubbly chin. “Why that there’s my daughter, Helen. Like to meet her?”
Matthew could hardly believe his ears. Givens’s daughter! Incredible! What a coincidence! What luck! Would he like to meet her? He leaned over and shouted “Yes.”
V
A huge silver monoplane glided gracefully to the surface of Mines Field in Los Angeles and came to a pretty stop after a short run. A liveried footman stepped out of the forward compartment armed with a stool which he placed under the rear door. Simultaneously a high-powered foreign car swept up close to the airplane and waited. The rear door of the airplane opened, and to the apparent surprise of the nearby mechanics a tall, black, distinguished-looking Negro stepped out and down to the ground, assisted by the hand of the footman. Behind him came a pale young man and woman, evidently secretaries. The three entered the limousine which rapidly drove off.
“Who’s that coon?” asked one of the mechanics, round-eyed and respectful, like all Americans, in the presence of great wealth.
“Don’t you know who that is?” inquired another, pityingly. “Why that’s that Dr. Crookman. You know, the fellow what’s turnin’ niggers white. See that BNM on the side of his plane? That stands for Black-No-More. Gee, but I wish I had just half the jack he’s made in the last six months!”
“Why I thought from readin’ th’ papers,” protested the first speaker, “that th’ law had closed up his places and put ’im outta business.”
“Oh, that’s a lotta hockey,” said the other fellow. “Why just yesterday th’ newspapers said that Black-No-More was openin’ a place on Central Avenue. They already got one in Oakland, so a coon told me yesterday.”
“ ’Sfunny,” ventured a third mechanic, as they wheeled the big plane into a nearby hangar, “how he don’t have nuthin’ but white folks around him. He must not like nigger help. His chauffeur’s white, his footman’s white an’ that young gal and feller what was with him are white.”
“How do you know?” challenged the first speaker. “They may be darkies that he’s turned into white folks.”
“That’s right,” the other replied. “It’s gittin’ so yuh can’t tell who’s who. I think that there Knights of Nordica ought to do something about it. I joined up with ’em two months ago but they ain’t done nuthin’ but sell me an ole uniform an’ hold a coupla meetin’s.”
They lapsed into silence. Sandol, the erstwhile Senegalese, stepped from the cockpit grinning. “Ah, zese Americains,” he muttered to himself as he went over the engine, examining everything minutely.
“Where’d yuh come from, buddy?” asked one of the mechanics.
“Den-vair,” Sandol replied.
“Whatcha doin’, makin’ a trip around th’ country?” queried another.
“Yes, we air, what you callem, on ze tour inspectione,” the aviator continued. They could think of no more to say and soon strolled off.
Around an oval table on the seventh floor of a building on Central Avenue, sat Dr. Junius Crookman, Hank Johnson, Chuck Foster, Ranford the Doctor’s secretary and four other men. At the lower end of the table Miss Bennett, Ranford’s stenographer, was taking notes. A soft-treading waiter whose Negro nature was only revealed by his mocking obsequiousness, served each with champagne.
“To our continued success!” cried the physician, lifting his glass high.
“To our continued success!” echoed the others.
They drained their glasses, and returned them to the polished surface of the table.
“Dog bite it, Doc!” blurted Johnson. “Us sho is doin’ fine. Ain’t had a bad break since we stahted, an’ heah ’tis th’ fust o’ September.”
“Don’t holler too soon,” cautioned Foster. “The opposition is growing keener every day. I had to pay seventy-five thousand dollars more for this building than it’s worth.”
“Well, yuh got it, didn’t yuh?” asked Johnson. “Just like Ah allus say: when yuh got money yuh kin git anything in this man’s country. Whenever things look tight jes pull out th’ ole check book an’ eve’ything’s all right.”
“Optimist!” grunted Foster.
“I ain’t no pess’mist,” Johnson accused.
“Now gentlemen,” Dr. Crookman interrupted, clearing his throat, “let’s get down to business. We have met here, as you know, not only for the purpose of celebrating the opening of this, our fiftieth sanitarium, but also to take stock of our situation. I have before me here a detailed report of our business affairs for the entire period of seven months and a half that we’ve been in operation.
“During that time we have put into service fifty sanitariums from Coast to Coast, or an average of one every four and one-half days, the average capacity of each sanitarium being one hundred and five patients. Each place has a staff of six physicians and twenty-four nurses, a janitor, four orderlies, two electricians, bookkeeper, cashier, stenographer and record clerk, not counting four guards.
“For the past four months we have had an equipment factory in Pittsburgh in full operation and a chemical plant in Philadelphia. In addition to this we have purchased four airplanes and a radio broadcasting station. Our expenditures for real estate, salaries and chemicals have totaled $6,255,085.10.”
“He! He!” chuckled Johnson. “Dat ten cents mus’ be fo’ one o’ them bad ceegars that Fostah smokes.”
“Our total income,” continued Dr. Crookman, frowning slightly at the interruption, “has been $18,500,300, or 370,006 patients at fifty dollars apiece.
