onville that the loungers had lost faith,
and with it curiosity, and now they scarcely changed their positions as
the little engine stopped with a snort of disgust. But in an instant
indifference had fled as the mist before the sun, and every eye on the
platform was staring and white. It is the unexpected that always
happens, and yet humanity never gets accustomed to it. The loafers,
white and black, had assumed a sitting posture, and then they had stood
up. For from the cars there had alighted the wonder of a stranger--a
Negro stranger, gorgeous of person and attire. He was dressed in a suit
of black cloth. A long coat was buttoned close around his tall and
robust form. He was dead black, from his shiny top hat to his not less
shiny boots, and about him there was the indefinable air of distinction.
He stood looking about the platform for a moment, and then stepped
briskly and decisively toward the group that was staring at him with
wide eyes. There was no hesitation in that step. He walked as a man
walks who is not in the habit of being stopped, who has not known what
it is to be told, "Thus far shalt thou go and no further."

"Can you tell me where I can find the residence of Mr. Isaac Jackson?"
he asked sonorously as he reached the stupefied loungers. His voice was
deep and clear.

Someone woke from his astonishment and offered to lead him thither, and
together the two started for their destination, the stranger keeping up
a running fire of comment on the way. Had his companion been a close
observer and known anything about the matter, he would have found the
newcomer's English painfully, unforgivably correct. A language should be
like an easy shoe on a flexible foot, but to one unused to it, it proves
rather a splint on a broken limb. The stranger stalked about in
conversational splints until they arrived at Isaac Jackson's door. Then
giving his guide a dime, he dismissed him with a courtly bow, and
knocked.

It was a good thing that Martha Ann Jackson had the innate politeness of
her race well to the fore when she opened the door upon the radiant
creature, or she would have given voice to the words that were in her
heart: "Good Lawd, what is dis?"

"Is this the residence of Mr. Isaac Jackson?" in the stranger's suavest
voice.

"Yes, suh, he live hyeah."

"May I see him? I desire to see him upon some business." He handed her
his card, which she carefully turned upside down, glanced at without
understanding,