“The ole bugger! He said that?” cried Goosey.
“He said nothing else, believe me.”
Banjo continued: “That young cracker was jest lousy with money. When he started to pay the first drinks he pulled out on me a wad of dollars as thick as a deck a cards. He shoved it back in his pocket as if he had done made a mistake and pulled out a pocketful a French bills. All high ones:—fifty, hundred, five hundred, thousand. Well, fellahs, we went to the swellest part a Paree to eat, a place called Chaunsly. And we went into a restaurant where only dooks and lawds and high sasiety guys ate. There was a man let us in all dressed up like the Prince of Wales on parade—”
“You nevah saw no Prince a Wales, nigger,” Bugsy cut in.
“Yes, I did, too. He reviewed our regiment two times. All the soldiers them was crazy about him.”
“And what does he look like?” asked Bugsy.
“Looks like—the Prince of Wales—why, he’s A number one—a sweet potato in the skin.”
“I’ve traveled as much as you, Banjo, but you done seen a tall lot a high life that I only know in pictures,” said Malty in a tone of admiration.
Banjo carried on: “We had six mens all dressed up in mourning like white gen’men going to a ball to wait on us. Man! I ain’t nevah seen no feed spread like that ’cep’n’ when I was working on a millionare yacht. And after we ate we jumped into an atmobeel for Montmartre. And we sure did do Montmartre some:—Paradese, Tabarin, Cha’noir, Mohlang Rouge. And in every one a them there was darkies with ofays. But that cracker was game. In every bar we went in he treated every darky that would have a drink on him.
“We finished up the night in one a the swellest pulluluxe joints in Paree. Man! I had everything befoh and ovah me. It was just like it had been in all them other places. They was all foh me. And that young cracker wouldn’t miss a thing—”
“No!” Bugsy was pop-eyed.
“Not a thing, I tell you.”
Banjo went on: “He was one thoroughmost-going baby, and jest so nice and nacheral about it as you makem. I tell you straight that if the Mason and Dixie line and that pale skin didn’t deevide us, I wouldn’t want a better pal to travel around with. I tell you again he didn’t miss anything that was paid for and there wasn’t anybody else paying but him for everything that was had. Yessah, we-all flopped together, I ain’t telling you no lie, either, and imagine what you want to, but there wasn’t no moh than one baid, neither. And befoh he left the next morning he hand me a thousand-franc note and he asted me who I think was the greatest people in the wul’. And I answered back I think it was the French. And he said no they wasn’t, that niggers was the greatest people—”
“Did he say niggers?” cried Goosey.
“I should say not. He said ‘colored people.’ ”
“Well, I wish you would all learn to say ‘colored’ and ‘Negroes’ and drop ‘darky’ and ‘niggers,’ ” said Goosey. “If we don’t respect ourselves as a race we can’t expect white people to respect us.”
“It’s all right among ourselves,” said Banjo.
“No, it isn’t. We got to drop those slavery names among ourselves, too.”
Banjo began whistling “Shake That Thing.” Abruptly he stopped and turned to Ray. “What do you say about my story for a big write-up, pardner?”
“First-rate.”
“All right, then. Go to it and use all you want.”
“I’ve got a personal-experience one, too,” said Ray, “not nearly as rich as yours, but I’ll tell it if you fellows want to hear.” They did.
Ray said: “I was in Paris myself about three or four years after Banjo’s time, I guess. And it was just the same kind of hand-to-mouth business living there as here. I used to hang around the bohemian quarter where there were many English and American joy-birds and bohemian highbrows talking art and books.
“My own inclination was for the less cosmopolitan parts of the city. But I was broke. And Americans are the most generous people in the world when they are out on a tipsy holiday. All you fellows know that and that some of them will do things for you abroad that they could dare not do at home.”
“That’s the truth said,” said Banjo. “A nigger can often bum a raise out of a pierson from Dixie because he’d be ashame’ for a nigger to think he ain’t got nothing.”
“Well,” continued Ray, “I picked up a little change among the Americans and got invited to some swell feeding. But that didn’t happen every day. Sometimes my temper turned suddenly bilious and I wouldn’t accept an invitation to eat, because I couldn’t enjoy the food with the party that was paying for it. I remember one day I forced myself against my feelings and nearly puked in a high-class eating-joint. Then sometimes I would put in a half a day boozing with a jolly gang of good fellows and expecting to be asked for a feed. And they’d all ease off at the end and ignore me. Some bohemians are like that, you know. But you all know it, too. They’ll drink up a fortune with you, but they won’t buy you a meal, and if you ask them for one they’ll turn you down as a panhandler, no good for bohemian company.
“With all a that and my kind of temperament, I knew that Paris was no business for me unless I could find a job. One of the Latin-American artists was my friend and he got me a job to pose. It wasn’t so easy to find black bodies for
