“He done puts me heah foh bohd and lodging. He didn’t put me heah foh no preaching, for them’s jest as ungodly up theah in need a saving as yo’-all is down heah. I went straight up theah as I landed and jest’ lay mah Bible down on the desk befoh that high and mighty white man, and I told him that the Mightiest One had done send me on this jierny for to preach the gospel word.
“And he done started in to tell me that I’d had to go right on back home by the fust boat sailing, for Marcelles was no place for me. And don’t ask me ef I didn’t done get him told jest as Jesus wanted me to. I told him how he was in need a saving jest like anybody else, and that he was nothing more than a sinner, and that no pohsition wouldn’t nary save him even ef he was our own President hisself and not jest standing heah foh him same as the President is standing foh Gawd and our country.
“Yessah chilluns, I done gived him his share of the message same as yo’-all gwina git yours, foh Gawd is no respecter of high pohsitions, and befoh I done finish got him told I seen that the spirit had laid strong hands on him, for he was looking at mah papers and a counting mah money and gitting a man to come and fix me up heah whar I is.”
“But, ma,” said Ray, “if you’ve really come on salvation business, down here is too righteous for you. You should go up to the Bum Square where the world hangs out.”
“Sure. That’s the place. Tha’s the hell where all them li’l’ ofay devils am monkeying, ma,” Banjo declared in a rollicking, rakish accent.
“I’m scared they might grab me,” Sister Geter replied, inclining her head on her shoulder in a slightly suggestive way of worldliness, while a smile centering on her full brown nose brightened her features, and just for a moment she seemed flirtatious. Just for a moment, but it did not escape the prehensile sense of Banjo, who quickly nudged Ray behind and winked. But just as quickly also did Sister Geter become her missionary self again.
“Did you leavem all a you’ money up theah at the consulate, ma?” Ginger asked.
“Why, no. I done change a few dollars in them heah French francs to carry me along for a little while.”
“You know, ma,” said Ginger again, “wese all good boys. We all loves Big Massa Gawd and ain’t doing anything wicked, but wese jest stranded heah; can’t get a broa—a boat; and wese always hard up and hungry, so ef you c’n hulp us out a li’l’ bit with a li’l’ money fust—”
“Oh La‑a‑a‑awd! Save you’ poah chilluns Lawd, Lawd! Save them fwom sarving the devil and drifting to hell so far away from home, Lawd!”
Sister Geter had thrown the holy stuff, gagging Ginger before he could finish, and was performing on the pavement just as if she were back home in a Protestant revival state. She brought a crowd of French folk running up in no time. Shopkeepers, restaurateurs, bar people, chauffeurs, seamen, dockers, girls, and touts—the colorful miscellany that makes the Place de la Joliette always a place of warm interest. And following the crowd, four policemen from the square were precipitating themselves toward the scene. The beach boys fled.
There were piles upon piles of boxes on the pier, and dozens of dockers were wheeling them across planks into the hold of the ship. Taxicabs dashed in with passengers, taxicabs dashed out, and taxicabs were waiting. Private detectives stood talking with port police, and black, brown, and white guides were buzzing about. White beach fellows prowled up and down in their smelly rags, looking up to the decks like hungry dogs. The black fellows, less forward, stood a little way off. Two white American sailors in sports clothes were conversing with a ship’s officer. One of them had been in hospital, the other had missed his ship, and both of them were being put up by the consulate against repatriation.
It was a splendid pattern of a ship, a much more impressive thing in its bigness than the memory of the President after whom it was named. Its world-touring passengers crowded the decks tier upon tier. There were elderly people who seemed not to be enjoying the trip, but there were many others, young men and women who were bubbling over with high spirits.
Over above them all, poised high up on the funnel of the great liner, was the brazen white sign of the dollar. It was some dockers pausing, pointing and spitting at it, that drew Ray’s attention as he stood at one side with his companions. And immediately, too, a reaction of disgust was registered in him. He could understand the men’s gesture and apprehend why that mighty $ stood out like a red challenge in the face of the obstreperous French bull.
Even though the name of the man who bossed the line was Dollar, thought Ray, it was at least bad taste for him to be sending that sign touring round the world in this new era of world finance. An idea flashed upon Ray, and for a moment he wondered if he could capitalize it by patenting a plan of giving the dollar lessons in diplomacy, but it was immediately driven from his mind by the charming voice of a young lady calling from the deck: “Boy! boy!”
She was gesturing toward the black boys, and they all started forward, but Bugsy was ahead of the others. She was a tall fair girl, between brunette and blond, and wore a reddish-gray traveling dress in which she was as striking as a Fifth Avenue shop’s cut of a French model.
“Boy,” she said, looking down on Bugsy, “are you from Dixie?”
“Yes, miss.”
“And the others, too?”
“Yes, miss, wese all Americans.”
“Listen at that nigger,” Banjo said to Ray, “playing straight
