“Yea,” said Jinx. “I’ve heard ’bout that, too. But I don’t think no shine’s got no business bustin’ into no fay neighborhood.”
“He got business bustin’ in any place he want to go. Only way for him to git anywhere is to bust in—ain’ nobody gon’ invite him in.”
“Aw, man, whut you talkin’ ’bout? Hyeh’s a dickty tryin’ his damnedest to be fay—like all d’ other dickties. When they git in hot water they all come cryin’ to you and me fo’ help.”
“And they git help, what I mean. Any time dickties start fightin’, d’ rest of us start fightin’ too. Got to. Dickties can’t fight.”
“Jes’ ’cause they can’t fight ain’ no reason how come we got to fight fo’ em.”
“ ’Tain’ nothin’ else. Fays don’ see no difference ’tween dickty shines and any other kind o’ shines. One jig in danger is ev’y jig in danger. They’d lick them and come on down on us. Then we’d have to fight anyhow. What’s use o’ waitin’?”
“Damn if you’d ever go out o’ yo’ way to fight f’ no dickties,” Jinx taunted.
“Don’ know—I might,” Bubber said.
“Huh!” discredited Jinx. “You wouldn’ go out o’ yo’ way to fight f’ yo’ own damn self—and you far from a dickty.”
“Right,” cheerfully agreed Bubber. “I’m far from a dickty, no lie. But I ain’ so far from a rat.” Jinx missed the meaning of this, so Bubber gilded up close to him and drove it home. “Fact I’m right next to one.”
Encircling grins improved Jinx’s understanding. “Next to nuthin’!” exploded he, giving the other a rough push.
“Next to nuthin’, then,” acquiesced Bubber, caroming off. “You know what you is lots better’n I do.” Whereupon he did a triumphant little buck and wing step, which ended in a single loud, dust-raising stamp. Dry dust and drier laughter floated irritatingly into Jinx’s face. Jinx was long and limber but his restraint was short and brittle. Derision snapped it in two.
“So’s yo’ whole damn family nuthin’!” he glowered, heedless of the disproportion between the trivial provocation and so violent a reaction. For it is the gravest of insults, this so-called “slipping in the dozens.” To disparage a man himself is one thing; to disparage his family is another. “Slipping” is a challenge holding all the potentialities of battle. The present example of it brought Bubber up short and promptly withdrew the bystanders’ attention from their gin.
The bystanders began “agitatin’ ”—uttering comments deliberately intended to urge the two into action. The agitators concealed their grins far up their sleeves, presenting countenances grave with apprehension and speaking in tones resigned to the inevitability of battle.
“Uh-uh! Sho’ mus’ know each other well!”
“Wha’ I come fum, dey fights fo’ less ’n dat.”
“Ef y’ can’t stand kiddin’, don’ kid, I say.”
“I don’ b’lieve he’s gon’ hit ’im, though.”
“I know what I’d do ’f anybody said that ’bout my family.”
As a matter of fact, the habitual dissension between these two was the symptom of a deep affection which neither, on question, would have admitted. Neither Jinx and Bubber nor any of their associates had ever heard of Damon and Pythias, and frank regard between two men would have been considered questionable to say the least. Their fellows would neither have understood nor tolerated it; would have killed it by derisions, conjectures, suggestions, comments banishing the association to some realm beyond normal manhood. Accordingly their own expression of this affection had to take an ironic turn. They themselves must deride it first, must hide their mutual inclination in a garment of constant ridicule and contention, the irritation of which rose into their consciousness as hostility. Words and gestures which in a different order of life would have required no suppression became with them necessarily inverted, found issue only by assuming a precisely opposite aspect, concealed a profound attachment by exposing an extravagant enmity. And this was a distortion of behavior so completely imposed upon them by their traditions and society that even they themselves did not know they were masquerading.
Bubber, his round face gone ominously blank, drew slowly closer to Jinx, who, face thrust forward a little and scowling, stood with his back to the bar counter, on which both elbows rested.
“Mean—my family?” inquired Bubber.
Jinx dared not recant. “All the way back to the apes,” he assured him “—and that ain’t so awful far back.”
“The apes in yo’ family is still livin’,” said Bubber, “but they’s go’n’ be one daid in a minute.”
“Stay where you at, you little black balloon, or I’ll stick a pin in you, you hear?”
By this time Bubber was almost within range and an initial blow was imminent. Absorbed in the impending clash, no one had noticed the arrival of a newcomer. But now this newcomer spoke and his words, soft and low though they were, commanded immediate attention.
“Winner belongs to me.”
Everybody looked—spectators holding their drinks, Bubber with his blank black face, Jinx with his murderous scowl. They saw a man at one end of the bar counter, one foot raised upon the brass rail, one elbow resting on the mahogany ledge; a young man so tall that, though he bent forward from the hips in a posture of easy nonchalance, he could still see over every intervening head between himself and the two opponents, and yet so broad that his height was not of itself noticeable; a supremely tranquil young Titan, with a face of bronze, hard, metallic, lustrous, profoundly serene. He repeated his remark in paraphrase:
“I am askin’ fo’ the winner. I am very humbly requestin’ a share in
