about seven minutes late."

"Yuh, that's right; seven minutes late."

The porter entered--a negro in white jacket with brass buttons.

"How late are we, George?" growled the fat man.

"'Deed, I don't know, sir. I think we're about on time," said the
porter, folding towels and deftly tossing them up on the rack above the
washbowls. The council stared at him gloomily and when he was gone they
wailed:

"I don't know what's come over these niggers, nowadays. They never give
you a civil answer."

"That's a fact. They're getting so they don't have a single bit of
respect for you. The old-fashioned coon was a fine old cuss--he knew
his place--but these young dinges don't want to be porters or
cotton-pickers. Oh, no! They got to be lawyers and professors and Lord
knows what all! I tell you, it's becoming a pretty serious problem. We
ought to get together and show the black man, yes, and the yellow man,
his place. Now, I haven't got one particle of race-prejudice. I'm the
first to be glad when a nigger succeeds--so long as he stays where he
belongs and doesn't try to usurp the rightful authority and business
ability of the white man."

"That's the i.! And another thing we got to do," said the man with the
velour hat (whose name was Koplinsky), "is to keep these damn
foreigners out of the country. Thank the Lord, we're putting a limit on
immigration. These Dagoes and Hunkies have got to learn that this is a
white man's country, and they ain't wanted here. When we've assimilated
the foreigners we got here now and learned 'em the principles of
Americanism and turned 'em into regular folks, why then maybe we'll let
in a few more."

"You bet. That's a fact," they observed, and passed on to lighter
topics. They rapidly reviewed motor-car prices, tire-mileage,
oil-stocks, fishing, and the prospects for the wheat-crop in Dakota.

But the fat man was impatient at this waste of time. He was a veteran
traveler and free of illusions. Already he had asserted that he was
"an old he-one." He leaned forward, gathered in their attention by his
expression of sly humor, and grumbled, "Oh, hell, boys, let's cut out
the formality and get down to the stories!"

They became very lively and intimate.

Paul and the boy vanished. The others slid forward on the long seat,
unbuttoned their vests, thrust their feet up on the chairs, pulled the
stately brass cuspidors nearer, and ran the green window-shade down on
its little trolley, to shut th