“I was just waiting for one of those Americans to make a move against us,” said the Senegalese boxer. “I would like to murder one of them. I have my gun.”
“No good that,” said Ray, who, although he was always ready to defend himself in the jungles of civilization, was dead set against stupid violence.
“It’s just about two years,” said the Senegalese, “that some Americans caused a black prince to be thrown out of a cabaret in Montmartre, and Poincaré made a declaration against it. He said Americans cannot treat Negroes in France the way they do in America.”
“That won’t prevent discrimination, though,” said Ray, “so long as the pound is lord and the dollar is king and the white man exalts business above humanity. ‘Business first by all and any means!’ That is the slogan of the white man’s world. In New York we have laws against discrimination. Yet there are barriers of discrimination everywhere against colored people. Sometimes a Negro wins a few dollars in a test case in the courts. But no decent Negroes want to go to court for that. We don’t want to eat in a restaurant nor go to a teashop, a cabaret, or a theater where they do not want us, because we eat and amuse ourselves for the pleasure of the thing. And when white people show that they do not want to entertain us in places that they own, why, we just stay away—all of us who are decent-minded—for we are a fun-loving race and there is no pleasure in forcing ourselves where we are not wanted.
“That’s why the amusement side of the life of the Negro in America is such a highly-developed thing. And in spite of the deep differences between colored and white, it is the most intensely happy group life of Negroes in any part of the civilized world.”
“You’re right,” said one of the visitors. “I have been in many a poht, all right, and I’ve spread joy some, but when it comes to having a right-down good time, there ain’t any a them that’s got anything on Harlem. Well, whar we going?”
“It’s rotten luck,” said Banjo, “for you-all to hit this town when it is lousy with crackers. It ain’t always like this. But the Ditch is all right, though. Everything is down theah. And I nevah crave to leave it for any other show.”
The boys had shuffled off along up the Canebière, talking.
“Sure the Ditch is all right,” said Ray. “I was just thinking how we fellows traveling around like this learn a whole lot a things. A sailor ought to be the most tolerant person in the world, he has seen so much. And I think he is in his rough way, from all I’ve seen of sailors knocking around port towns. Except the white American sailor. He sees everything, but he learns nothing. And I don’t think he’s capable of learning. He carries abroad with him everything that should be left back home. Everything that is mean, hard-boiled, and intolerant in American life.
“Well, if we can’t learn anything from the traveling representatives of American culture, we might learn from other people. I’ll tell you something about these sailors. A few months ago I was visiting Toulon, when this same squadron arrived. Now on the Boulevard de Strasbourg at Toulon there is a tavern where the young officers always dance. Many of the better class of cocottes go there. The common French sailor is not allowed in there. But when the American sailors came they were given the run of the tavern. Why? Because they had plenty of dollars to spend—the pay of an American sailor turned into francs is probably as much as the pay of a French lieutenant. I’m not sure.
“Some hundreds of low cocottes came to Toulon for the American sailors. And they all flocked with them to the tavern. I was interested to know what the young French officers would do. Of course, they couldn’t stand the changed atmosphere of the place. And they just stopped going there! There was a little exclusive dancing-place in an out-of-the-way street, and I saw a few of them dancing there with their girls.
“After all, they were officers with a right to kick. But they didn’t. They just separated themselves from the canaille. They knew what a little extra good business meant to a French commerçant. You know in America, with our high wages and the dollarized standard of living, we have no idea of money value and economy in the ordinary European sense. But that is something else. All I want to say is that I learned something helpful from that incident at Toulon. Something that made me sure of myself and stronger in my own worth.”
“I get you,” one of the seamen said.
“You do?” asked Ray. “There are different ways of growing big and strong, for individuals as well as for races.”
When the boys reached the Place de la Bourse again they were suddenly surrounded by a troop of painted youths who, holding hands, danced around them with queer gestures and queerer screams, like fairy folk in fables.
“Here they are!” laughed Ray. “If there’s a British-American bar over there, there’s none here.”
“A regular turnout foh the deep-sea stiffs,” commented Banjo. “Ain’t nothing missing in this burg.”
“They ought to give them yellow cards, too,” said the Senegalese.
“Pourquoi?” asked Ray.
“Pour la santé publique, comme les filles. Et voyez,
