“ ‘Gawd is the first principle,’ I done heard that said,” declared Malty.
Bugsy grinned, saying, “And Gawd is in Boody Lane.”
“Youse a nut!” said Malty. “Don’t be calling up Gawd’s name as if he was a nigger.”
“I seen him there, I tell you,” laughed Bugsy, “the day of the big church fête. I seen that there blond broad burning her candle before his image.”
“It was nothing,” said Ginger, “but the eternal visible of imagination.”
No barrel was found in a position favorable for a raid, and so the boys filled their pockets with peanuts and walked across the suspension bridge toward the breakwater. Banjo was in a discontented mood and did not join in the jests. At the end of the breakwater a small boat was letting off passengers. Banjo went up to it and said, “Bonjour” to the patron, who greeted him with a smile.
Banjo stepped into the boat and, waving his hand airily at his pals, said: “Goodbye!” The patron started the motor and the boat went sheering off against the breakwater toward the direction of the Vieux Port.
The boys gazed after him pop-eyed and gaping. What a fellow Banjo was to put himself over! None of them knew that when Banjo’s pockets were bulging with real money that very boat had taken him and his girl on two excursions, one to the Château d’If and another to the Canal du Rove at l’Estaque. The boat was just then returning from a trip to the canal, and had stopped to let off passengers who wanted to see the breakwater. Banjo had merely struck, accidentally, a pretty thing again, but it seemed very wonderful to his pals, as if a special pilot had appeared for him and he had walked away from them into a boat that was conveying him to some perfect paradise.
V
“Jellyroll”
Shake That Thing. The opening of the Café African by a Senegalese had brought all the joy-lovers of darkest color together. Never was there such a big black-throated guzzling of red wine, white wine, and close, indiscriminate jazzing of all the Negroes of Marseilles.
For the Negro-Negroid population of the town divides sharply into groups. The Martiniquans and Guadeloupans, regarding themselves as constituting the dark flower of all Marianne’s blacks, make a little aristocracy of themselves. The Madagascans with their cousins from the little dots of islands around their big island and the North African Negroes, whom the pure Arabs despise, fall somewhere between the Martiniquans and the Senegalese, who are the savages. Senegalese is the geographically inaccurate term generally used to designate all the Negroes from the different parts of French West Africa.
The magic thing had brought all shades and grades of Negroes together. Money. A Senegalese had emigrated to the United States, and after some years had returned with a few thousand dollars. And he had bought a café on the quay. It was a big café, the first that any Negro in the town ever owned.
The tiny group of handsomely-clothed Senegalese were politely proud of the bar, and all the blue overall boys of the docks and the ships were boisterously glad of a spacious place to spread joy in.
All shades of Negroes came together there. Even the mulattoes took a step down from their perch to mix in. For, as in the British West Indies and South Africa, the mulattoes of the French colonies do not usually intermingle with the blacks.
But the magic had brought them all together to jazz and drink red wine, white wine, sweet wine. All the British West African blacks, Portuguese blacks, American blacks, all who had drifted into this port that the world goes through.
A great event! And to Banjo it had brought a unique feeling of satisfaction. He did not miss it, as he never missed anything rich that came within his line of living. There was music at the bar and Banjo made much of it. He got a little acquainted with the patron, who often chatted with him. The patron was proud of his English and liked to display it when there was any distinguished-appearing person at the café.
“Shake That Thing!” That was the version of the “Jellyroll Blues” that Banjo loved and always played. And the Senegalese boys loved to shake to it. Banjo was treated to plenty of red wine and white wine when he played that tune. And he would not think of collecting sous. Latnah had gone about once and collected sous in her tiny jade tray. But she never went again. She loved Banjo, but she could not enter into the spirit of that all-Negro-atmosphere of the bar. Banjo was glad she stayed away. He did not want to collect sous from a crowd of fellows just like himself. He preferred to play for them and be treated to wine. Sous! How could he respect sous? He who had burnt up dollars. Why should he care, with a free bed, free love, and wine?
His plan of an orchestra filled his imagination now. Maybe he could use the Café African as a base to get some fellows together. Malty could play the guitar right splendid, but he had no instrument. If that Senegalese patron had a little imagination, he might buy Malty a guitar and they would start a little orchestra that would make the bar unique and popular.
Many big things started in just such a little way. Only give him a chance and he would make this dump sit up and take notice—show it how to be sporty and game. How he would love to see a couple of brown chippies from Gawd’s own show this Ditch some decent movement—turn themselves jazzing loose in a back-home, brownskin Harlem way. Oh, Banjo’s skin was itching to make some romantic thing.
And
