The Forged Note Part 15

"Then you step aside, and follow the officer downstairs to the clerk's office," he instructed.

"Pay me out, pay me out!" from Demon again.

Wyeth frowned and pinched him good. "I wish to confer in regard to this fellow," said he to hunchy, as they were being waited for.

In the detention room, Demon secured a loan of fifty cents from another miscreant, and a moment later, they stood before the clerk.

When the fines had been paid, the officer said: "Now Demon, you can go, but I am ordered to hold Wyeth as a suspicious character."

"Well I'll be d.a.m.ned!" was all Wyeth said.

"Take me at once before him," he cried, when they were again in the court room, at the same time flas.h.i.+ng his check book which he had placed in his pocket for precautionary measures. Demon had followed them gratefully back up the stairs, and now stood about muttering in a low tone: "Ain' that h.e.l.l, _ain' that h.e.l.l_!" Wyeth motioned him aside, resolutely.

Once more he stood before his Honor. Upon recognizing him, the recorder looked at the officer with a question. His face had cleared of the frown it wore some time before, and Wyeth concluded his stomach was better.

The officer preferred the charge, whereupon he looked at Wyeth keenly.

Wyeth made a motion. It was granted.

"I dislike, very much, your Honor, to be kept in this court room so unceremoniously. I am no criminal, and my time is worth something. Now if I may be permitted to put up more money, I have just paid a fine for being out late for myself, as well as for another, and go my way until this thing is done with, I'll appreciate it."

"Very well. Twenty-five dollars."

Wyeth paid it, and never returned to take it down.

When he got back to his room after it was all over, thirty-six dollars to the bad, he opened the book of resolutions and recorded therein:

"Resolved! That to give heed to the 'Call of the Wild' in Attalia, is a very expensive diversion, albeit a lesson; therefore, henceforth, twelve o'clock will find me in the land of nod."

CHAPTER TWELVE

_A Jew_; _a Gentile_; _a Murder_--_and Some More_

"Look here, kid, they tell me they had you," jollied Spoon, when he saw Wyeth that evening at Hatfield's ice cream parlor.

"You're breaking into print," laughed "Bubber" Hatfield, unfolding a green sheet, _The Searchlight_, a sensational four-page afternoon affair, which made a specialty of court news, and which most colored people read. They are fond of such news.

Frowning, while all those standing about laughed, he took the sheet and read:

NEGRO FROM THE NORTH WAS SURPRISED

In a few colored paragraphs, it described his appearance before the recorder. And in conclusion, it had these trite words, purported to have been said by him: "Dey don' have dem kind of laws up norf."

The following Sat.u.r.day, he dropped into Tompkins' and was introduced to a man who impressed him considerably. At the first glance, he could see he was not a southerner. Before he made his acquaintance, he overheard him discussing books with Tompkins, and when he heard him speaking of the latest works of fiction, he opened his ears. To hear a Negro in Attalia discussing novels, the late ones, was something new to him; in fact, he had heard the most of those he met discuss but one, a salacious one from the pen of a noted English author and playwright, and which cannot be had at the libraries, but is, nevertheless, a masterpiece.

He grasped his hand cordially, and they at once entered into conversation. His name was Edwards. "This gentleman," explained Tompkins, "is the author of the book you and your friend were looking at this afternoon." Edwards' eyebrows went up with considerable pleasure, as he cried in a voice that was, to say the least, cordial:

"Indeed! I am honored to meet a real author." Sidney, however, was much embarra.s.sed. He disliked to be pointed out as an author among his people. The most of those he met had impressed him with the feeling that an author must be something extraordinary, and were usually disappointed to find them only human beings like themselves. Edwards, however, was not only an individual of good breeding, but one with perspective, and quite capable of appreciating an effort, regardless of what the attainment might be.

Sidney had met few of his race, but who seemed to feel that to write was to be graduated from a school, with a name that was a fetish, and to be likewise a professor in some college. In order to get material and color for a work, they had not yet come to realize that it was best, and much more original as well, to come in contact with the people and observe their manner of living.

This may account, in a large degree, for the fact that so many whom he met were impractical, even badly informed.

Edwards and he became agreeable acquaintances at once. "Come take dinner with me this evening," Edwards invited, grasping Wyeth's arm, and leading him into the restaurant next door, where he had already ordered dinner. And such a meal! Wyeth had not realized that it was in the range of possibilities for the little place to prepare such a one. Moreover, to say that Edwards knew how to order would be putting it mildly. He spared no cost obviously, since the meal came to $3.75. Wyeth felt guilty, when he recalled that he ate three times a day at the same place, the kind termed "half meals," and which came to fifteen cents per.

Before they had sat long, Edwards' friend came to the table. And of all the Negroes Sidney had met, this one was the most extraordinary. The son of a j.a.panese mother and a Negro father, he had been educated abroad.

He spent his youth in Asia, lived a portion of his life in j.a.pan, the remainder in America and was a Buddhist. One Negro at least who didn't spell "ligon."

History and science, from the beginning of time--before Adam whom he scorned, astronomy, astrology, meteorology, the zodiac and the constellations, in fact, he seemed to know everything. Sidney, anxious always to learn what he did not know, could only sit with mouth wide open, while the other declared Jesus of Nazareth, Noah, the flood, Adam and Eve, and all the rest, the biggest liars the world ever knew.

When Sidney had occasion to speak of him to religious Negroes in after-months, they would say: "Shucks! He couldn't a-convinced me 'gainst mah Jaysus." And he would then be sorry. Sidney "believed" as much as any one else of moderate intelligence, and his acquaintance with the unusual Negro had no effect whatever upon him as a believer; but he knew that many of those who professed so much faith in "Jaysus" and cried: "We is G.o.d fearin' fo'kes," were mere "feelers" who had no thought of G.o.d whatever, in the sense he should be regarded and respected. Indeed, they did not fear him. They feared but one thing, these black people, and that was the white man, which belongs to another chapter.

"I grant all you say to be quite possible, my dear sir," said he, when the other paused in his serious discourse; "but, having been raised to the Christian faith, I am, therefore, a hopeless believer. I do, nevertheless, respect your point of view and your faith, and am glad indeed to have met you," which ended it.

Edwards proved to be a graduate of Yale, and was well informed in every way, as Sidney suspected.

He had always found it this way. The great fault he was finding daily with those of his race, was that they did not read, did not observe, and were not informed in the many things they could just as well have known.

As the days went by, Sidney's friends.h.i.+p with Edwards developed to the point, where Edwards insisted upon paying half the rent for the privilege of loafing in the office whenever he was at leisure. Sidney did not inquire his business, or what he was engaged in; but his curiosity was aroused nevertheless. His friend always had plenty of money and spent it not foolishly, but freely. He never permitted Wyeth to pay for anything, and he never ate a meal that came to less than two dollars.

After a few days, another fellow joined him, who, while surrounded with an air of mystery, did not happen to possess so much apparent education.

His name was Smyles, and he purported to be from Boston. At the same time acknowledged Alabama to be his birth place. He still carried the accent. He was dark of visage, had long legs, and wore trousers around them, which appeared never to have been pressed. (Wyeth wondered why some of the many pressing clubs did not kidnap him alive.) His head was small and obviously hard, and he wore his top hair so closely cropped, that no one could quite describe what kind it was.

Now Smyles was a sport, likewise a spender, and, moreover, with money a-plenty to spend. And, as the days pa.s.sed and Wyeth became better acquainted with him, he learned that he was "mashed" on the girls to a considerable degree. For instance: There was Lucy, who waited on them at Miss Payne's cafe, who got "crazy" about him. He did about her, too, for awhile, at least he pretended to. Then he became interested likewise in another who had "better hair" than Lucy. Thereupon Lucy became "mad"

with jealousy, and threatened to do something "awful." She didn't, so we leave her to her fate, and go on with Smyles who becomes, for the present, the hero of this story.

"Smyles is a great fellow," remarked Sidney humorously to Edwards, one day.

"Isn't he the limit?" said Edwards, with a touch of disgust.

"All the girls are liking him," resumed Sidney, enjoying the conversation and discussion.

"Takes with all the kitchen mechanics, and anything else that wears a skirt." Edwards had dignity, a great deal of it, Wyeth had come now to know. He was plainly disgusted. Sidney went on.

"Has lots of money to spend, which makes it exceedingly convenient."

"He's the luckiest c.o.o.n in town," said Edwards thoughtfully.

"Indeed!"

"Shoots c.r.a.ps I think."