“Monkey turned backside way and curled up his tail against the hole. ‘I don’t see it.’
“Leopard leaped over by monkey, shoved him aside, and pointing in the hole said, ‘There it is!’
“Monkey gave leopard a hard push. Leopard’s hand went way down deep in the hole and was grabbed. Monkey ran cackling down the tree, his tail high in the air.
“ ‘Oh, my good monkey,’ leopard wailed, ‘something got me.’
“ ‘What thing?’ monkey demanded.
“ ‘Oh, I don’t know. Some terrible thing. Some evil thing.’
“ ‘What is the name of the thing?’
“ ‘I don’t know.’
“The conversation stopped and monkey frisked around the tree, striking his face with his hand in mimic mood. At last leopard spoke again:
“ ‘Oh, good monkey, out yonder in that clump of bush there are some prongs set up. Won’t you go out there and pull them up for me?’
“Monkey went and fixed the prongs more securely in their place. Leopard saw them gleaming sharply out there in the sun and he groaned.
“At last monkey ran up the tree and bawled, ‘Who’s holding me?’
“Leopard began to howl.
“ ‘Me, spinner,’ replied the voice from the hole.
“ ‘Spin let me see!’ monkey bawled.
“And leopard was whirled round and round and sent flying through the air to land on the steel prongs. Monkey uncovered the pile of dead victims and called all the other animals for a big feast. Leopard they skinned, and kept the hide as a trophy. And all the animals made monkey king over them and the land was happy again.”
“Now lemme tell you-all one story,” said Bugsy.
“One time down home in Alabam’ there was a white man’s nigger whose name was Sam. He was a house darky and he was right there on the right side a the boss and the missus. But Sam wasn’t noneatall satisfied to be the bestest darky foh the boss folks. He aimed to be the biggest darky ovah all the rest a darkies. So Sam started in to profitsy and done claimed he could throw the fust light on anything that was going to happen.
“Sam had some sort of a way-back befoh-slavery connection with thunder and lightning and he could predick when it was gwine to rain. But all the same he couldn’t put himself ovah the field niggers, ’causen there was a confidential fellah among them who was doing a wonderful business in hoodoo stuff. That other conjure man had Sam going something crazy.
“And so, to make the biggest impression on the boss folks and the plantation folks Sam started in hiding things all ovah the place and then challenge the other conjure man to find them. And when the other fellah couldn’t find the things Sam would predick where they was.
“He found the guinea pig in the baby’s cradle. He found the buck rabbit eating cheese in the pantry. The cock was missing from the hencoop and he found him scratching with the cat in the barn. Ole Mammy Joan lost her bandana and Sam found it in the buggy house under the coachman’s seat. She couldn’t noneatall sleep a nights, and he found a big rat done made a nest in her rush baid.
“Sam’s fohsightedness made him the biggest darky evah with the boss folks and the black folks, and the news about him spread all ovah the country. And one day a big boss of another plantation comed to visit the boss. And the boss bet the other a bale of cotton that his nigger Sam could find anything that he hid away.
“The other boss took up the bet and had Sam blindfolded and shut up in one a the outhouses, and he made the darkies bring out one a them great big ole-time plantation pot. And he caught a coon and put it under the pot. And then they let Sam out and the boss asks him to tell what was under the pot.
“ ‘I feel a presumonition not to predick today, boss,’ Sam said.
“ ‘But you gotta,’ the boss said. ‘I done put a bet on you and I know you can tell anything.’
“Sam shook his head and, looking at the pot, said, ‘This coon is caught today.’
“ ‘Hurrah!’ the boss cried. ‘I knowed mah nigger could tell anything.’ And he let the coon out from under the pot.
“At first Sam was kinder downhearted and scared. But soon as he saw the coon he got his head up and chested himself and started to strut off just so big and just that proud.
“And from that time the American darky started in playing coon and the white man is paying him for it.”
“And who is paying the Wesht Indian foh playing monkey-chaser?” Banjo asked.
“Hi, nigger, what you come picking me up for? I thought you said you was français!”
“That’s a white man’s story,” was Goosey’s comment.
“I don’t care a black damn whose it is. It’s a fine story,” said Ray.
“I’ll tell you a real man story, pardner,” said Banjo, “that ain’t no monkey-coon affair.”
“Shoot,” said Ray.
Banjo said: “It’s about a cracker that I runned into in Paree when I was in the Kenadian army and I was there on leave. He runned into me in a café on the Grands Boulevards. He looked mah uniform ovah, and although he seed what it was he asked me what I was, and I said, ‘Kenadian soldier.’
“He ups and asks me ef I would have a drink and I did. And then he invited me ef I didn’t feel any personal objection to take a turn round gay Paree with him. I told that cracker that I was nevah yet objectionable to a good thing. Man, he was a money cracker as sure as gold ain’t no darky’s color, and he was no emancipated Yankee but a way-back-down-home-in-Dixie peck. That baby took me into the swellest cafés in Paree and wouldn’t order nothing but the dearest drinks. And when we had drink and drunk and was one sure-enough pair a drinking fools, he said to me says he: ‘Bud, we’ll stick
