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{| class="wikitable" ! colspan="3" | U ! colspan="3" | V Rh
 * 日譯，和譯
 * translation into Japanese
 * 和譯
 * 照著字樣解的
 * translation, literal
 * 逐字譯
 * 翻譯人
 * translator
 * 譯者，飜譯者
 * 旅行記
 * travels
 * 旅行記
 * 論文，譜
 * treatise
 * 論文
 * 活字，鉛字
 * type
 * 活字
 * 活版字
 * type, movable
 * 活版字
 * 打字機本
 * type-script
 * タイプライターで打つたもの
 * 打字機
 * type-writer
 * タイプライター
 * 用打字機打的
 * typewritten
 * タイプライターで打つた
 * 印刷術
 * typography
 * 活版術
 * 打字機
 * type-writer
 * タイプライター
 * 用打字機打的
 * typewritten
 * タイプライターで打つた
 * 印刷術
 * typography
 * 活版術
 * 印刷術
 * typography
 * 活版術
 * 無邊書籍
 * unbound book
 * 假綴
 * 未記號數的
 * unnumbered
 * 無數の
 * unnumbered
 * 無數の
 * 各種各樣
 * various
 * 多種多樣の
 * 細羊皮紙
 * vellum
 * 犢皮紙
 * }
 * 犢皮紙
 * }


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Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 5).pdf/32

 heart, he has been ill enough, poor lad! I'll answer for him—for he is dead.

When Agrippina was told of her son's death, Tacitus informs us, that not being able to moderate the violence of her passions, she abruptly broke off her work—My father stuck his compasses into Nevers, but so much the faster.—What contrarieties! his, indeed, was matter of calculation—Agrippina's must have been quite a different affair; who else could pretend to reason from history?

How my father went on, in my opinion, deserves a chapter to itself.—

And a chapter it shall have, and a devil of a one too—so look to yourselves.

'Tis either Plato, or Plutarch, or Seneca, or Xenophon, or Epictetus, or

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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{| class="wikitable"
 * 表式的
 * tabular
 * 表の
 * 專門名詞
 * terms, technical
 * 專門語，術語
 * 原著，原文
 * text
 * 原文
 * 校定原文
 * text, corrected
 * 修正原文
 * 官文
 * text, official
 * 官文
 * 正文
 * text, original
 * 正文
 * 正文註解
 * text and commentary
 * 正文註釋
 * 敎授本，敎科書
 * text-book
 * 敎科書
 * 寶典
 * thesaurus
 * 辭典，寶典
 * 策論，文章
 * thesis
 * 學位論文
 * title, alternate
 * 副標題
 * 書名，書號，表題
 * title, book
 * 本の表題，標題
 * title, chapter
 * 章の題名
 * 題簽
 * title, cover
 * 表裝標題
 * 書名登錄
 * title entry
 * 標題記入
 * title, running
 * 闌 [sic]名見出
 * 封面
 * title-page
 * 表題紙
 * 摹本，影本，鈔本
 * traced copy
 * 摹本
 * 透寫紙
 * tracing paper
 * 透寫紙
 * 勸世文，觀世篇
 * tract, religious
 * 小册子，小論
 * 商標
 * trade-mark
 * 商標
 * 議事錄，會報
 * transactions
 * 會報報吿，學術報吿
 * 翻譯
 * translate
 * 翻譯する
 * 譯文，翻譯
 * translation
 * 譯，飜譯
 * 自由譯
 * translation, free
 * 自由譯
 * 漢譯
 * translation into Chinese
 * 唐譯
 * }Rh
 * 透寫紙
 * 勸世文，觀世篇
 * tract, religious
 * 小册子，小論
 * 商標
 * trade-mark
 * 商標
 * 議事錄，會報
 * transactions
 * 會報報吿，學術報吿
 * 翻譯
 * translate
 * 翻譯する
 * 譯文，翻譯
 * translation
 * 譯，飜譯
 * 自由譯
 * translation, free
 * 自由譯
 * 漢譯
 * translation into Chinese
 * 唐譯
 * }Rh
 * translation, free
 * 自由譯
 * 漢譯
 * translation into Chinese
 * 唐譯
 * }Rh
 * }Rh


text: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman/Volume 5/Chapter 2


text: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman/Volume 5/Chapter 3


text:
Page:JT International SA v Commonwealth of Australia.pdf/20

French CJ

1. Does the resolution of question (1) require the judicial determination of any and if so what disputed facts following a trial?

2. If the answer to question (1) is "yes" are all or some, and if so which, provisions of the TPP Act in whole or in part beyond the legislative competence of the Parliament by reason of s 51(xxxi) of the Constitution?

3. Are all or some, and if so which, provisions of the TPP Act in whole or in part beyond the legislative competence of the Parliament by reason of the matters raised in paragraphs 10–12 of the statement of claim?

4. What order should be made in relation to costs of the Questions Reserved?"

JTI and BAT contended that the TPP Act would effect an acquisition of their property on other than just terms contrary to the guarantee provided by s 51(xxxi) of the Constitution. The categories of property rights said to be affected appear from the pleadings. In the case of JTI, they are its registered trade marks and get-up. In the case of BAT, they are its registered and unregistered trade marks, copyright, get-up, licensing goodwill, design, patents, packaging rights, packaging goodwill and intellectual property licensing rights.

Section 51(xxxi) confers upon the Commonwealth Parliament the power to make laws with respect to:

"[t]he acquisition of property on just terms from any State or person for any purpose in respect of which the Parliament has power to make laws".

It uses the term "property" which appears in a number of places in the Constitution. As used in s 51(xxxi) it has long been construed broadly by this Court. It extends to property rights created by statute although the terms of such statutes and the nature of the property rights which they create require


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{| class="wikitable" ! colspan="3" | T Rh
 * 鉛版
 * stencil duplicator
 * 鏤花板
 * 研究，學習
 * studies (essays, etc.)
 * 研究
 * 公事文詞
 * style, documentary
 * 文書體
 * 文體
 * style, literary
 * 文體
 * 副題
 * subheading
 * 副標目
 * 題目登錄
 * subject entry
 * 事項記入
 * 題目索引
 * subject index
 * 事項索引
 * 預定
 * subscription
 * 預約
 * 募刊
 * subscription, printed by
 * 募刊
 * 副題名
 * subtitle
 * 副標題
 * 總錄大略
 * summarize
 * 約言する
 * 撮要，節略
 * summary
 * 總括，要略
 * 替換
 * supersede
 * 廢す，代へる
 * 補編，續編
 * supplement
 * 增補，裕足，附錄
 * 姓
 * surname
 * 姓
 * 硏究
 * survey
 * 硏究
 * 切音，反切
 * syllabic spelling of Chinese
 * 課程表
 * syllabus
 * 要項
 * 鋼領，總略
 * synopsis
 * 摘要，要領一覽
 * 增補，裕足，附錄
 * 姓
 * surname
 * 姓
 * 硏究
 * survey
 * 硏究
 * 切音，反切
 * syllabic spelling of Chinese
 * 課程表
 * syllabus
 * 要項
 * 鋼領，總略
 * synopsis
 * 摘要，要領一覽
 * syllabus
 * 要項
 * 鋼領，總略
 * synopsis
 * 摘要，要領一覽
 * 摘要，要領一覽
 * 一覽表
 * table (in book)
 * 表
 * 家譜
 * table, genealogical
 * 系圖
 * 統計表
 * table, statistical
 * 統計の表
 * }
 * table, statistical
 * 統計の表
 * }


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  or Lucian—or some one perhaps of later date—either Cardan, or Budæus, or Petrarch, or Stella—or possibly it may be some divine or father of the church, St. Austin, or St. Cyprian, or Barnard, who affirms that it is an irresistable and natural passion to weep for the loss of our friends or children—and Seneca (I'm positive) tells us somewhere, that such griefs evacuate themselves best by that particular channel.—And accordingly we find, that David wept for his son Absolom—Adrian for his Antinous—Niobe for her children, and that Apollodorus and Crito both shed tears for Socrates before his death.

My father managed his affliction otherwise; and indeed differently from most men either ancient or modern; for he neither wept it away, as the Hebrews and the Romans—or slept it off, as the Laplanders—or hang'd it, as the English, or drowned it, as the Germans—nor did he


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French CJ

examination to determine whether and to what extent that property attracts the protection of s 51(xxxi). As the plurality cautioned in Attorney-General (NT) v Chaffey, further analysis is imperative where the asserted "property" has no existence apart from statute.

There are and always have been purposive elements reflecting public policy considerations which inform the statutory creation of intellectual property rights. The public policy dimensions of trade mark legislation and the contending interests which such dimensions accommodate were referred to in Campomar Sociedad, Limitada v Nike International Ltd. The observation in that case that Australian trade marks law has "manifested from time to time a varying accommodation of commercial and the consuming public's interests" has application with varying degrees of intensity to other intellectual property rights created by statute. Intellectual property laws create property rights. They are also instrumental in character. As Peter Drahos wrote in 1996, their proper interpretation does not depend upon "diffuse moral notions about the need to protect pre-legal expectations based on the exercise of labour and the creation of value." The statutory purpose, reflected in the character of such rights and in the conditions informing their creation, may be relevant to the question whether and in what circumstances restriction or regulation of their enjoyment by a law of the Commonwealth amounts to acquisition of property for the purposes of s 51(xxxi) of the Constitution. That is not to say that such rights are, on account of their instrumental character, inherently susceptible to variation and, on that account, not within the protection of s 51(xxxi). In Chaffey the plurality said :


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{| class="wikitable" Rh
 * 按字母分析題名記入
 * alphabetical subject catalogue
 * 分析題名記入
 * 美國圖書館會
 * American Library Association
 * 米國圖書館會
 * 別的，…他人，…他物
 * … and others
 * …他人，…他物
 * 幾種別的書
 * … and several other books
 * 他の數書
 * 年志，通鑑
 * annals
 * 年記，年代記
 * 耶蘇降世後年分
 * Anno Domini
 * 基督降誕後
 * 註解，旁註
 * annotate
 * 註釋する
 * 註解者
 * annotator
 * 註釋者
 * 豫吿，通吿
 * announcement, preliminary
 * 吿示，通知
 * 年刊，年編
 * annual (publication)
 * 年刊，年一囘刊行
 * 每年一次的
 * annually
 * 年一囘刊行
 * 無名者
 * anonym
 * 無名
 * 隱名的書
 * anonymous book
 * 匿名の圖書
 * 精華錄文選
 * anthology
 * 名詩選，名文選
 * 後續，附編
 * appendix
 * 附記，附錄
 * 請求單
 * application blank
 * 借覽請求票
 * 估價
 * appraisal
 * 評價
 * 阿拉伯數字
 * Arabic numerals
 * アラビア数字
 * 公家案卷
 * archives
 * 記錄公文書
 * 排法，布置
 * arrangement, order
 * 配列
 * }
 * 請求單
 * application blank
 * 借覽請求票
 * 估價
 * appraisal
 * 評價
 * 阿拉伯數字
 * Arabic numerals
 * アラビア数字
 * 公家案卷
 * archives
 * 記錄公文書
 * 排法，布置
 * arrangement, order
 * 配列
 * }
 * 排法，布置
 * arrangement, order
 * 配列
 * }
 * }


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BY

1926 NEW YORK · ALFRED · A · KNOPF · LONDON

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 PROLOGUE

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 Anatole Longfellow, alias the Scarlet Creeper, strutted aimfully down the east side of Seventh Avenue. He wore a tight-fitting suit of shepherd's plaid which thoroughly revealed his lithe, sinewy figure to all who gazed upon him, and all gazed. A great diamond, or some less valuable stone which aped a diamond, glistened in his fuchsia cravat. The uppers of his highly polished tan boots were dove-coloured suède and the buttons were pale blue. His black hair was sleek under his straw hat, set at a jaunty angle. When he saluted a friend—and his acquaintanceship seemed to be wide—two rows of pearly teeth gleamed from his seal-brown countenance.

It was the hour when promenading was popular—about eleven o'clock in the evening. The air was warm, balmy for June, and not too humid. Over the broad avenue, up and down which multi-hued taxicabs rolled, hung a canopy of indigo sky, spangled with bright stars. The shops, still open, were brilliantly illuminated. Slouching under the protecting walls of the buildings, in front of show-windows, or under the trees, groups of young men

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 congregated, chattering and laughing. Women, in pairs, or with male escorts, strolled up and down the ample sidewalk.

Hello, 'Toly! A stalwart black man accosted the Creeper.

Hello, Ed. How you been?

Po'ly, thank you. How you been?

No complaints. Nummer come out. Drew sixty-seven bucks.

Holy Kerist!

Yeh. Anatole displayed his teeth.

What nummer?

Seven-Nine-Eight.

Whah you found et?

Off'n a gal's fron' do'.

Comin' out?

Goin' in. Ah went out duh back winder. Her daddy done come home widout writin'.

Hush mah mouf!

Ah doan mean mebbe.

As Anatole walked on, his self-esteem flowered. Unbuttoning his coat, he expanded his chest, dangerously stretching the gold watch-chain which extended from pocket to pocket across his muscular belly.

Howdy.

Howdy.

He greeted in passing Leanshanks Pescod, a mulatto who, in successive Saturday

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text:
Page:JT International SA v Commonwealth of Australia.pdf/22

French CJ

"a law reducing the content of subsisting statutory exclusive rights, such as those of copyright and patent owners, would attract the operation of s 51(xxxi)." (footnote omitted)

On the other hand, that statement is not to be taken as support for the proposition that the extinguishment or restriction of a statutory exclusive right, without more, would constitute an acquisition for the purpose of s 51(xxxi). That statement was made in a context of a rejection of the broad proposition that the statutory extinguishment of statutory rights is excluded from the scope of s 51(xxxi). The question whether there has been an acquisition of all or any of the plaintiffs' asserted property rights directs attention to their source and nature and the consequences of the restrictions imposed by the TPP Act upon their use or enjoyment. The property said to have been the subject of acquisition under the TPP Act comprises a mixture of statutory and associated or derivative non-statutory rights. It is useful to make brief generic reference to them.

At common law, the property interest associated with a trade mark was derived from the goodwill of the business which used it. However, the rights conferred by successive Commonwealth statutes on the holders of registered trade marks have always been "a species of property of the person whom the statute describes as its registered proprietor". Those rights are the exclusive rights to use the trade mark and to authorise other persons to use the trade mark in relation to the goods and/or services in respect of which the trade mark is registered. They are capable of assignment and transmission and attract


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 sessions at the Commonwealth Club, had defeated two white comers.

Is you enjoyin' de air, Mr. Longfellow?

'Deed, Ah is, Mrs. Guckeen. How you been? The Creeper's manner became slightly flirtatious.

Thank you, Mr. Longfellow, an' pretty well.

Mrs. Imogene Guckeen was the proprietor of a popular beauty parlour further up the avenue. It was Anatole's custom to indulge in a manicure at this parlour every afternoon around five. As a wide circle of admiring women was cognizant of this habit, five was the rush hour at Mrs. Guckeen's establishment. She was fully aware of the important rôle this customer played in her affairs and, as a consequence, made no effort to collect his always considerable bill. Occasionally, moreover, the Creeper would slip her five or ten dollars on account, adding a chuck under her drooping chin and a devastating smile.

Turning about at One hundred and twenty-seventh Street, Anatole faced north and resumed his leisurely promenade. Now, however, despite the apparently careless flipping and twisting of his ebony cane, tipped with a ball of ivory, his air was more serious. He peered into the faces of the women he encountered with an expression that was almost anxious. Once, so eagerly did he seek a pair of eyes which obstinately refused to return his stare, he bumped into an elderly black man with a

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 long white beard, who limped, supported by a cane. Anatole caught the old fellow only in time to prevent his falling.

Ah sartainly beg yo' pahdon, he said with his most enchanting smile.

The octogenarian returned the smile.

'Pears to me, he squeaked, dat you's mos' unnacherly perlite fo' dis street at dis hour.

The Creeper's breast expanded a full two inches, causing his watch-chain, stretched to capacity, to drag a ring of jangling keys from his waistcoat pocket. Replacing the keys, he reflected that he could afford to be agreeable, even magnanimous, to harmless old gentlemen. Was there another sheik in Harlem who possessed one-tenth his attraction for the female sex? Was there another of whose muscles the brick-pressers, ordinarily quite free with their audible, unflattering comments about passers-by, were more afraid? As he meditated in this wise, his pride received an unexpected jolt. Under the bright lights in front of the Lafayette. Theatre, he discerned a pompous figure whose presence obliterated the smug cheerfulness from his heart.

A few years earlier Randolph Pettijohn had made his start in Harlem as a merchant of hot-dogs. His little one-storey shop, hugged between two towering buildings, had rapidly become popular. His frankfurters were excellent; his buns were fresh; his mustard beyond reproach. In a short time Pettijohn's business was so successful, the over-

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 head expense so light—he was his own cook and he personally served his customers over the counter—that he had saved a sufficient sum of money to invest in real-estate, an investment which increased in value over-night. Next, with the proceeds of a few judicious sales, he openeda cabaret which shortly became the favourite resort in Harlem. Now, his Bolito game had made him so rich that his powerfully exerted influence began to be felt in political circles.

Unreasoningly, Anatole hated him. He had—never inimically crossed the Creeper's path, but somehow, subconsciously, Anatole was aware that such an eventuality was by no means impossible. Besides, it irked the Creeper to realize that any one else possessed power of whatever kind. The feeling was not reciprocated. Anatole was frequently a spectacular figure at the Winter Palace, Pettijohn's cabaret, where he was welcome because he was known to be a particular favourite with jig-chasers from below the line.

ow you been, 'Toly? The Bolito King greeted the Creeper warmly, even affectionately.

Hello, Ran.

Lookin' 'em over?

Ah'm takin' 'em in. The Creeper was reticent.

You sartainly are one dressin' up fool, Creeper, one of the King's companions inserted.

Heavy lover, too, another added.

The King offered his accolade: Nobody like

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 duh Creeper fo' close an' women, nobody a-tall.

Anatole exposed his pearls. Bottle et, he suggested.

Come in an' see me, Pettijohn invited. Mah Winter Palace is open winter an' summer.

Completely at his ease again, the Creeper strutted on, swinging his cane, expanding his chest, and humming to himself:

Howdy, 'Toly!

As Anatole looked into the unwelcome eyes of a high yellow boy whose suit was shiny and whose boots were patched, his manner became a trifle patronizing.

How you been, Duke?

Not so good, 'Toly. Duh show done went broke.

Dere'll be annudder.

Sho'. How's Ah gwine live till den?

The Creeper proffered no advice.

You lookin' mighty lucky, 'Toly. The Duke's tone was one of whining admiration.

The Creeper preserved his discreet silence.

Ah nebber did see no sheik what had yo' gif' fo' dressin'.

The Creeper's chest was the thermometer of the effect of this compliment.

Ah's hungry, 'Toly. Hones'. Gimme duh price of a dog.

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 Drawing a handful of loose change from his trouser-pocket, with great deliberation the Creeper selected a quarter from this heap and passed it to his indigent acquaintance.

Heah you is, Duke. . . . He had the air of a munificent benefactor. . . . Now why ain' you git mo' providen'?

Ah is, 'Toly, when Ah gits duh chance. 'T'ain' mah fault duh show done went broke. Inserting the quarter in his mouth, the boy made a sudden dash down a side-street.

Han' full o' gimme, mouf full o' much oblige, mused the Creeper.

At the corner of One hundred and thirty-seventh Street, surrounded by a numerous group of spectators, many of whom clapped their hands rhythmically, a crowd of urchins executed the Charleston. Apparently without intent, Anatole joined these pleasure-seekers. His eyes, however, quickly shifted from the dancers and stole around the ring of onlookers, in hasty but accurate inspection. Suddenly he found that for which he had been searching.

She was a golden-brown and her skin was clear, as soft as velvet. As pretty a piece, he reflected, as he had seen around these parts for some time, and he had not happened to see her before. Her slender body was encased in coral silk, the skirt sufficiently short to expose her trim legs in golden-brown stockings. A turquoise-blue cloche all but covered her straight black shingled hair. Her soft, brown eyes

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 seemed to be begging. Withdrawing his own gaze almost immediately, so swift had been his satisfactory appraisal, he was nevertheless aware that she was contriving, without appearing to do so, without, indeed, appearing to look at him at all, to edge nearer to him. Never once, while she carried out her design, did her hands refrain from the rhythmic clapping which accompanied the juvenile dancers. When at last, she stood by his side, so close that he might touch her, she continued to pretend that she was only interested in the intricate steps of the Charleston. Anatole, outwardly, gave no sign whatever that he was aware of her presence.

After they had played this game of mutual duplicity for some time, she, losing patience or acquiring courage, accosted him.

Hello, 'Toly.

He turned, without a smile, and stared at her.

Ah doan seem to recerllec' dat Ah got duh honour o' yo' acquaintance.

You ain', Mr. 'Toly, an' dat's a fac'. Mah name's Ruby.

He did not encourage her to proceed.

Ruby Silver, she completed.

He: remained silent. Presently, in an offhand way, he began to clap his hands. A particularly agile lad of six was executing some pretty capers. Hey! Hey! Do that thing!

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 Everybody knows who you is, Mr. 'Toly, everybody! Her voice implored his attention.

The Creeper continued to clap.

Ah been jes' nacherly crazy to meet you.

The Creeper was stern. What fo'? he shot out.

You knows, Mr. 'Toly. I guess you knows.

He drew her a little apart from the ring.

How much you got?

Oh, Ah been full o' prosperity dis evenin'. Ah met an ofay wanted to change his luck. He gimme a tenner.

The Creeper appeared to be taking the matter under consideration. Ah met a gal las' night dat offer me fifteen, he countered. Nevertheless, it could be seen that he was weakening.

Ah got annuder five in mah lef' stockin', an' Ah'll show you lovin' such as you never seen.

The Creeper became more affable. Ah do seem to remember yo' face, Miss Silver, he averred. Will you do me duh favour to cling to mah arm.

As they strolled, their bodies touching, down a dark side-street, his hand freely explored her flesh, soft and warm under the thin covering of coral silk.

Wanna dance? he demanded.

Luvvit, she replied.

Come across.

She stooped to fumble in her stockings, first the right, then the left. Presently she handed him two

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 bills which he stuffed into his waistcoat pocket without the formality of examination.

Winter Palace? she inquired.

A nasty shadow flitted across Anatole's face.

Naw, he retorted. Too many ofays an' jig-chasers.

Bowie Wilcox's is dicty.

Too many monks.

Atlantic City Joe's?

Too many pink-chasers an' bulldikers.

Where den?

Duh Black Venus.

A few moments later they were swallowed by an entrance on Lenox Avenue, flanked by two revolving green lights. Arm in arm, they descended the stairs to the basement. As they walked down the long hallway which led to the dance-floor, the sensual blare of jazz, slow, wailing jazz, stroked their ears. At the door three waiters in evening clothes greeted the Creeper with enthusiasm.

Why, dat's sartainly Mr. 'Toly.

Good evenin'.

Gwine sit at mah table?

Mine?

Mine, Mr. 'Toly?

Expanding his chest, Anatole gazed down the length of the hall. Couples were dancing in such close proximity that their bodies melted together as they swayed and rocked to the tormented howling of the brass, the barbaric beating of the drum. Across

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 each woman's back, clasped tight against her shoulder blades, the black hands of her partner were flattened. Blues, smokes, dinges, charcoals, chocolate browns, shines, and jigs.

Le's hoof, Ruby urged.

Le's set down, Anatole commanded. Passing his straw hat to the hat-check girl, he followed a waiter to an empty table, pushing Ruby ahead of him.

Hello, 'Toly! A friend hailed him from an adjoining table.

Hello, Licey.

A pint, the Creeper ordered.

The waiter Charlestoned down the floor to the intoxicating rhythm, twirling his tray on palm held high overhead.

Put ashes in sweet papa's bed so as he can' slip out, moaned Licey in the Creeper's ear. Ah knows a lady what'll be singing, Wonder whah mah easy rider's gone!

Bottle et.

Licey chuckled. Hush mah mouf ef Ah doan!

The waiter came back, like a cat, shuffling ingeniously from one side of the room to the other, in and out of the throng of dancers. Charleston! Charleston! Do that thing! Oh boy!

On his tray were two glasses, two splits of ginger ale, and a bowl of cracked ice. From his hip-pocket he extracted a bottle containing a transparent liquid. He poured out the ginger ale. Anatole poured out the gin.

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 Tea fo' two! he toasted his companion, almost jovially.

She gulped her glassful in one swallow, and then giggled, 'Toly, you's mah sho' 'nough daddy an' Ah sho' does love you wid all mah h'aht.

Everybody loves mah baby, tooted the cornet.

But mah baby doan love nobody but me, Ruby chimed in. She tentatively touched the Creeper's arm. As he did not appear to object to this attention, she stroked it tenderly.

Jes' once 'roun', she pleaded.

He humoured her. Embracing her closely, he rocked her slowly around the hall. Their heels shuffled along the floor. Their knees clicked amorously. On all sides of the swaying couple, bodies in picturesque costumes rocked, black bodies, brown bodies, high yellows, a kaleidoscope of colour transfigured by the amber searchlight. Scarves of bottle green, cerise, amethyst, vermilion, lemon. The drummer in complete abandon tossed his sticks in the air while he shook his head like a wild animal. The saxophone player drew a dilapidated derby over the bowl of his instrument, smothering the din. The banjos planked deliriously. The band snored and snorted and whistled and laughed like a hyena. This music reminded the Creeper of the days when he worked as a bootblack in a Memphis barbershop. Hugged closely together, the bodies rocked and swayed, rocked and swayed. Sometimes a

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 rolling-eyed couple, caught in the whirlpool of aching sound, would scarcely move from one spot. Then the floor-manager would cry, Git off dat dime!

Unexpectedly it was over. The saxophone player substituted the stub of a black cigar for the tube of his instrument. As if they had been released from some subtle enchantment the dancing couples broke apart, dazed, and lumbered towards their tables. Now that music was lacking their bodies had lost the secret of the magic rhythm. Normal illumination. A new mood. Laughter and chatter. A woman shrieked hysterically. The Creeper drew the bottle from his hip-pocket and poured out two more drinks.

Again Ruby drained her portion at one gulp. This time she had repudiated the ginger ale. Again she caressed her companion's arm. Again she sought his eyes, his great brown eyes, like a doe's.

Ah sho' will show you some lovin', daddy, she promised.

The Creeper grunted his approval.

Does you know what Ah calls dis? she continued rapturously.

Calls what?

Dis place, where Ah met you—Harlem. Ah calls et, specherly tonight, Ah calls et Nigger Heaven! I jes' nacherly think dis heah is Nigger Heaven!

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 On the floor a scrawny yellow girl in pink silk, embroidered with bronze sequins in floral designs, began to sing:

The Creeper sipped his gin meditatively.

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Mary Love closed the door softly behind her, shutting out the brassy blare of the band playing on the floor below, crossed the room, and hesitated before the open window. Unwontedly, she found herself quite ready to cry and she welcomed the salt breeze that blew in from the ocean. When she had consented to spend the week-end with Adora Boniface she had not taken into consideration, she discovered, all that this acceptance would imply. She had met—she should have known that she would meet—people who, on the whole, were not her kind. Adora, in her earlier life on the stage, and in her later rich marriage, had gathered about her—and tolerated—a set which included individuals who would never have been admitted into certain respectable homes in Harlem. There was, for example, Randolph Pettijohn, the Bolito King. Adora had probably invited him because he was rich and goodnatured. Mary conceded the affluence and the good-nature. She even tried not to be a snob when she thought of the manner in which he had accumulated his fortune. Hot-dogs, cabarets, even gambling, all served their purposes in life, no, doubt, although the game of Numbers was a deliberate—and

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 somewhat heartless, considering the average winnings—appeal to a weakness in the ignorant members of her race which she could not readily condone. It was not, however, Pettijohn's background which had won Mary's disfavour. Rather, it was his unpleasant habit of stopping her on the landings of the staircases, of pursuing her into the secluded nooks of the garden, behind the fir hedges. Mary's past experience had not been of a nature to fit her to cope easily with these unwelcome advances. Even now, she was perturbed by the reflection that Randolph might dare follow her into Adora's bedroom.

There was, she could perceive, nothing in Adora's attitude, nothing in the attitude of the house-party as a group, which would indicate that any one regarded such conduct with disapproval. Sylvia Hawthorne obviously had come expressly for the purpose of carrying on her more or less clandestine affair with Rumsey Meadows under auspices which would not too completely compromise her either in the eyes of her husband or the eyes of the more formal Harlem world to which she belonged. The others slipped about a good deal in pairs. If you passed a chamber in which two were sitting, you were likely to hear no words spoken. As for Adora herself, it was clear that she had settled her ephemeral fancy on Alcester Parker, but somehow Mary felt that she could forgive Adora anything.

Mary had known all about Adora, and liked her

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 in spite of all she knew, for a long time. Adora's former superior position on the stage, rare for one of her race in the early twentieth century, had awarded her a secure situation even before she married the wealthy real-estate dealer who, through rises in value of Harlem property, had been enabled to turn over to his widow at his death an estate which had few serious rivals in the new community. Frowned upon in many quarters, not actually accepted intimately in others—not accepted in any sense of the word, of course, by the old and exclusive Brooklyn set—Adora nevertheless was a figure not to be ignored. She was too rich, too important, too influential, for that. To be sure, she had never been conspicuous for benefactions to her race. On the other hand, she could be counted on for occasional splurges when a hospital was in need of an endowment or when a riot in some city demanded a call for a defence fund. Also, she was undeniably warm-hearted, amusing, in her outspoken way, and even beautiful, in a queenly African manner that set her apart from the other beauties of her race whose loveliness was more frequently of a Latin than an Ethiopian character. It was her good heart, together with her ready wit, that had won Mary as an adherent, with the additional fact that it suited Adora to be agreeable to Mary. Mary, consequently, really liked her, and often made it a point to seek her out for a chat at one or another of the large parties in Harlem where they

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 met. It was quite reasonable then, when, last week, Adora, encountering Mary in a Lenox Avenue music-shop, remarked that she looked peaked, that too close confinement in the library where she worked was not good for her health, invited her to spend a week-end at her country place on Long Island, for Mary to accept the invitation not only gratefully, but even with alacrity.

She recalled now, however, that certain of her friends, without saying very much, had suggested, perhaps with looks rather than words, that she might find the experiment distasteful. However that might be, Mary, her word once given, had kept it.

She had been here since Friday. It was now Sunday afternoon and several automobiles full of late arrivals had been welcomed with a dance, for which a celebrated jazz-band had been imported from New York. These late-comers had done nothing to dispel the atmosphere of the previous days. Rather, they had enhanced it. One party which had driven down in a great Packard announced its advent by tossing sundry empty gin bottles out into the drive. Another case of this favourite beverage, however, had immediately been opened in their honour. Gin, indeed, flowed as freely as if there had been a natural spring of it, while whisky, Scotch, rye, and Bourbon, was almost equally plentiful. So the petting continued, petting which, in some instances, with the amount of evidence under her eyes, seemed to

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 Mary something which might be called by an uglier name. There were, to be sure, sporadic parties at bridge or pinocle at little tables in several of the rooms in the spacious house, but after a time these were certain to end in a row about money or the desire on the part of some of the gamblers to return to the delights of amorous embraces.

Mary tried to feel that she was not a prig. She tried to assure herself that she might herself enjoy such attentions under more favourable circumstances. She tried to explain to herself that she was selective and not an exhibitionist. However that might be, she was obliged to confess that she was thoroughly out of harmony with her present environment.

At any rate, she mused, it's nobody's fault but my own. I should have had sense enough not to come. Anyway I won't be rude. I suppose I can manage to evade that old satyr for another sixteen hours without being silly or screaming for help—the others would only laugh, in any case, if I did that—and tomorrow I'll be back in my room in Harlem, just as poor as ever, but, thank God, a trifle more intelligent. I won't do just this again in a hurry.

She shook off her sombre mood, almost with a conscious movement of her shoulders, determining to think of impersonal matters. After all, she decided, with a kind of voluntary optimism, the view from this window is superb. In a pool below, shad-

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 owed by weeping-willow-trees with spreading boughs which swept the lawn, yellow water-lilies floated and rose lotus blooms nodded on their long, graceful stalks. Beyond, between the trees, across a green sward, lay the sea in which, taking advantage of the splendour of the day, several men were bathing. Two or three of them lay recumbent on the sand, their brown limbs gleaming like bronze in the sun. Others splashed about in the water. Now a youth was mounting the tower in preparation for a dive. He was, she noted, slightly lighter in colour than the others, almost the shade of coffee diluted with rich cream, her preferred tint. At the top of the tower he paused for an instant, arms high over head, long enough for her to catch the symmetrical proportions of his body, the exquisite form of his head, emphasized by his closely cropped, curly, black hair. Now, in a wide, parabolic curve, he dived, cut the water with his hands, and disappeared. Mary emitted an involuntary cry of pleasure: the action was so perfect; thrilling, she defined it. It was repeated many times, varied with much laughter and splashing below, and then the young man ran rapidly up the beach and vanished in the bath-house.

Mary turned away from the window and faced the room. Her discontent—disapproval would be a more just word—had vanished. She felt warmer, more understanding and sympathetic. The chamber itself she now found grateful to her eyes, suited

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 to her mood. It was hung in peach-coloured taffeta, expertly draped, the folds held in place by silver coronets, surmounted by plumes of a delicate blue. The bed, innocent of upright pieces, was merely a broad couch hidden beneath a covering of tiger-skins from under which peeped the supports created in the guise of griffins' claws. Magenta and silver cushions were scattered over its expanse. The rest of the furniture was a heavy Bavarian version of Empire, upholstered in dove-hued damask, the arms of the chairs terminating in silver swans' heads. Mary's roving glance included the dressing-table, beneath its canopy of taffeta, laid out with brushes and combs and boxes of tortoise-shell, rows of crystal, ruby, and sapphire bottles and vials, and tiny enamelled receptacles containing rouges and ointments. Loving luxury, all this panoply appealed to Mary's senses, awarded her, in itself, a definite happiness. Had she been alone in this house with Adora, she would have had, she was beginning to believe, a perfect time.

She crossed the room and stood before the dressing-table, regarding her reflection in the mirror, a mirror blessed and consecrated by two hovering silver Cupids. The attentions of Randolph Pettijohn had not augmented her vanity, but she was not displeased by her double. The rich golden-brown colour of her skin was well set off by the simple frock of Pompeian-red crêpe which she wore. Her features were regular, her brown eyes unusually

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 rich. Her hair, parted and smoothed over her forehead, was caught in a low knot just above the nape of her neck. She could not, justifiably, complain about her appearance. Her expression, too, she recognized with pleasure, was lighter, more carefree. What a fool I have been, she assured herself, not to enjoy all this, not to take it for what it is! I may never again be surrounded by such beauty. Mary sighed.

She turned, as she heard the unfastening of the door, to see Adora enter, a languid, fatigued Adora, supported on the one side by Piqua St. Paris, on the other by Arabia Scribner. The group resembled, Mary thought afterwards, Cleopatra, guided by Charmian and Iras.

Perceiving the room to be already occupied, Adora regained a little of her spent vitality.

Why, Mary, she exclaimed, we've missed you. What are you doing off here, all by yourself?

I was tired, Mary explained, and I came up here because you can see the garden better from this window.

I'm tired too, Adora sighed, sinking into a fauteuil, tired to death of all those Niggers downstairs. Sometimes I hate Niggers.

Adora dear, chirped Mrs. St. Paris, in a shrill,

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text:
Page:English-Chinese-Japanese Lexicon of Bibliographical, Cataloging and Library Terms Pb4XAAAAMAAJ.pdf/18

{| class="wikitable" ! colspan="3" | B Rh
 * 論說，論文
 * article (in periodicals, etc.)
 * 記事
 * 地圖
 * atlas
 * 地圖帖
 * 拍賣目錄
 * auction catalogue
 * 競賣目錄
 * 作家，著作家，著書人
 * author
 * 著者，作者
 * 著者目錄片
 * author card
 * 著者カード
 * 著者目錄
 * author catalogue
 * 著者目錄
 * 按著者名記入
 * author entry
 * 著者記入
 * 著者指南，著者索引
 * author index
 * 著者索引
 * 著者記號，著者數目
 * author number, mark, Cutter, etc.
 * 著者記號，著者數符
 * 檢定篇
 * authorized copy
 * 檢定本
 * 著者改正
 * author's alteration
 * 著者訂正
 * 著者待校之印稿
 * author's proof
 * 著者用校正刷
 * 自著之傳
 * autobiography
 * 自敍傳
 * 親筆，手書
 * autograph
 * 自筆
 * 著者親筆
 * autograph copy
 * 著者の自筆
 * 手寫本，手稿本
 * autograph draft
 * 著者起草
 * 著者用校正刷
 * 自著之傳
 * autobiography
 * 自敍傳
 * 親筆，手書
 * autograph
 * 自筆
 * 著者親筆
 * autograph copy
 * 著者の自筆
 * 手寫本，手稿本
 * autograph draft
 * 著者起草
 * 手寫本，手稿本
 * autograph draft
 * 著者起草
 * 著者起草
 * 秀才，文學士
 * Bachelor of Arts
 * 文學得業士
 * 理科學士
 * Bachelor of Science
 * 理學得業士
 * 舊號
 * back number
 * 旣刊號
 * }
 * back number
 * 旣刊號
 * }


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 sycophantic tone, can't I find something to cover your knees? Looking about she sighted a lemon-yellow dressing-gown hanging over a Coromandel screen. Gathering it in her arms, she spread it over her idol's limbs.

My knees are all right, Adora whined. It's my feet. . ..

Mrs. Scribner was on the floor at once, removing the offending satin shoes.

My feet. . . and those damn Niggers.

Silently, Mary applauded this sentiment.

It isn't you, Mary dear—in making this reservation Adora disregarded the presence of the other two ladies—it isn't you. It's that ink-fingered trash downstairs. Oh, a few of them are all right, but most of them come here to drink my booze and eat my food and raise hell at my expense. If I was poor they wouldn't come near me, not a damn one of them.

Why, Adora, protested Mrs. Scribner, we'd come to you in a hovel.

Um, Adora responded doubtfully, the while she stretched forward her released feet and wriggled her silk-encased toes. Suppose you ring the bell.

Mrs. St. Paris pressed a button in the wall.

Mary was surprised to find herself actually interested in studying Adora. She was beautiful, of that there could be no question, beautiful and regal. Her skin was almost black; her nose broad, her lips thick. Her ears were set well on her head;

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 her head was set well on her shoulders. She was a type of pure African majesty. She was garbed in a pansy chiffon robe which matched the pansy lights in her lustrous eyes. Caught by an invisible chain around her ebony forehead gleamed a single pear-shaped emerald.

As, in response to the summons of the bell, a maid entered, Mary noted what she had often observed before in the expression of dependent Negroes in the homes of rich members of her race, a certain sullen mien. We don't like to wait on each other, she reflected bitterly.

Nellie, Adora ordered, bring up four champagne-glasses and a bowl of ice.

Without responding, without, indeed, giving any indication that she had heard, the maid shuffled out of the room.

Now, where are my mules?

The sycophants in their haste, each to reach the proper closet first, bumped into each other and exchanged glares.

After she had been shod more comfortably, the former music hall star rose majestically and hobbled towards a chest of drawers. From beneath a heap of filmy chiffon and lace she extracted a bunch of keys. Selecting one, she unlocked a cupboard, the shelves of which, Mary observed, were occupied by rows of reclining bottles bundled in straw. Choosing one, Adora returned to the comfort of her arm-chair.

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 I need a drink bad, she averred, and nothing but champagne will do. It always cheers me up.

Presently Nellie returned with the glasses and a silver bowl containing ice. Drawing a small coffee-table near her mistress's chair, she placed her burden upon it and retired as silently as she had approached.

Nellie talks about as much as Coolidge, Adora remarked as she cooled the glasses and poured out the wine. The eyes of Mrs. St. Paris and Mrs. Scribner were greedy, but Adora ignored their message.

Mary, she said, here's yours.

Mary drew nearer and accepted the proffered goblet. Now, somewhat grudgingly, Adora served the other two ladies.

Sit down, Mary.

Mary obeyed her.

I like you, Mary, and I'm going to drink to your success.

Oh, yes, the sycophants echoed, to Mary's success!

Without further preliminary the ladies proceeded to sip their wine.

Thank you, Adora, Mary responded, but I haven't a notion what kind of success I want.

There's only one success for a woman, Adora announced, at least for a coloured woman, and that's a good husband, and a good husband for a coloured woman means a rich husband.

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 I don't know that I want to be married, Mary protested.

Oh, go on! Now what else can a coloured woman do? You're a librarian, but you'll never get as much pay as the white librarians. They won't even put you in charge of a branch library. Not because you're not as good as the others—probably you're better—but because you're coloured. If you were a trained nurse it would be the same. The only chance a coloured woman has—she can't be a doctor or a lawyer or a preacher or a real-estate agent like a man—is on the stage, and you'd be no good on the stage! Why, probably you can't even dance the Charleston!

I can—a little. Mary laughed grimly.

Well, a little isn't enough. Anyway, they don't want your type on the stage any more, or mine either, for that matter. If I wanted to work today I bet I couldn't get a job. The managers, especially the shine managers, are looking for high yallers. Well, I can't say I blame 'em. I'm sick of Niggers myself, damn sick of these black Niggers!

Adora sipped her wine meditatively.

I might open a beauty parlour. Mary essayed a weak attempt at humour.

Yes, you might, but there are forty of those on every street in Harlem already. And you might start another Black Star Line, or peddle snow, or become an undertaker, but you won't do any of these things.

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 The glasses of Mrs. St. Paris and Mrs. Scribner were conspicuously empty, their expressions eager, their arms all but outstretched. Overlooking this condition, Adora filled her own glass and continued in her rich, steady voice, low and musical, and with the commanding presence she had acquired during her career on the stage: There's an old song which I used to hear when I toured the South: Ain't it hard to be a Nigger? Ever hear it? Without waiting for a reply, Adora lay back in her chair and began to croon:

Well, I guess it is, though it partly depends on the way you look at it. It's hard for those who don't face facts. Now, I always do just that. Mary, she went on earnestly, almost pleadingly, I wish you'd get married.

Why, Adora, what can I do if nobody wants me? Mary tried to laugh off her embarrassment.

Well, you know as well as I do there's a certain party round here that's pretty crazy to get you.

Mary regarded her hostess with unfeigned astonishment.

You don't think he wants to marry me? she queried, too dumfounded to make any pretence that

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 she was unaware of the identity of the person to whom Adora referred.

In a minute. This afternoon. Neglecting the glasses of her guests—Mary's, as a matter of fact, remained nearly full—she offered herself another libation, whereupon the sycophants scowled.

Mary's conflicting emotions did not permit her to speak at once.

Well, Mary, what do you say?

If you don't mind, Adora. . . . If you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it.

Nonsense! . . . There came a loud knocking at the door. . . . More of those Niggers! Go see who it is, Piqua, Adora ordered.

It's Ran and Al.

Adora's expression softened. It was even tender. Oh, they can come in, she said.

The fat Bolito King, his smug, brown countenance wreathed in a wrinkled smile, his eyes assisted by a pince-nez, set in gold, entered, followed by a slender tea-coloured youth, in a blue flannel coat, white trousers, and sneakers.'

Well, boys, just in time for a little fizz-water, Adora cried.

We was lookin' fo' you an' et, the King admitted.

More particularly for you, Al added.

Well, for that you can both have a drink out of my glass, Adora suggested. Here's yours. She passed the glass to Al who drained the remnant at one gulp. Adora inverted the bottle. Only a few

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 drops trickled out. Get another bottle, Arabia, she commanded, her eyes following Al as he moved towards the window.

The hammering on the portal was repeated.

Let them in, Adora sighed. It's no use trying to be alone in this place. Let them in, but stow away the champagne and bring out the Scotch.

Been looking for you everywhere, Adora, cried Dr. Lister, the handsome and popular young dentist, as the door swung open. Behind him surged Lutie Panola, fat and merry, dressed in violet muslin and resembling an overgrown doll; Sylvia Hawthorne, smart in her shingle-haired, slender, yellow way, in a dress of écru linen embroidered in bright wools; smiling, smoking a cigarette through an amber holder, she leaned on the arm of Rumsey Meadows; Irwin Latrobe, Lucas Garfield, Guymon Hooker, Carmen Fisher, Hope Rosemount, and finally, the stranger whom Mary had watched diving brought up the rear.

Can we dance in here, 'Dora? Sylvia demanded. We've danced damn near everywhere else.

Her hostess making an impatient gesture of assent, Sylvia set the phonograph which soon was spinning around to the tune of Yes sir, that's my baby!

Roll up the rugs! Sylvia cried.

Rumsey obeyed her and three couples began to dance at once.

Lucas Garfield, who the previous spring had been

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 leading man in a Negro revue called James Crow, Esquire, imitated the strumming of a ukelele with his fingers while he sang:

Lutie Panola had thrown herself on the bed. She lay, a vast violet muslin heap on the tiger-skin covering, kicking up her heels, shivering like a mammoth platter of jelly, and emitting gurgles of joy. Dr. Lister dragged Mary to the floor and she danced with him willingly enough, only too grateful to escape the attentions of Pettijohn for the time being. Adora was beating time with the heel of her mule, while her two satellites and Alcester Parker waved their arms in rhythm with the music.

When the phonograph ran down, the noise increased. The men sought drinks, the women lipsticks. Mary gravitated towards the open window. Suddenly, through the uproar, in a clear undertone that ripped the din like thunder, she heard a voice behind her which unaccountably made her tremble.

You seem out of place here, if you don't mind my saying so, the voice said.

She turned quickly to face the diver, furious that he, a stranger, should take for granted what she felt to be true.

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 I don't know what you mean, she protested.

Yes, you do too, he went on imperturbably. La Boniface is all right, but apparently she invites a lot of riff-raff to her parties.

I dare say I'm no better than any one else. She could have bitten her tongue out after she had made this priggish remark. What would he think of her?

I dare say none of us is, he responded. It's just a matter of what we like and what we don't like. Now I don't believe you like this.

In drunken despair, Lutie was sobbing now. Lucas, still imitating the ukelele, warbled:

Wow! screamed Sylvia. Bottle it, Lucas, for cryin' out loud.

Mary smiled. I don't believe I've met you, she said.

My name's Byron Kasson: he introduced himself. I'm just graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Came out here today with a bunch

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 I met in New York. Shall I ask some one to introduce you to me?

No, don't. She spoke quickly. She was less nervous now. My name is Mary Love.

Somehow, Miss Love. . . it was his turn to be embarrassed. . . you stand out in a crowd like this. I couldn't help liking you even before I talked to you.

I saw you first. . . diving.

He smiled. That's the only thing I do well.

You do that well. Is it your profession?

I haven't any profession yet. I want to write, he went on.

You're a writer! Mary exclaimed with enthusiasm.

Oh, I haven't published much. I've had a piece or two in Opportunity, but that won't keep me alive. At college they said I had promise. I know what they meant, he added, pretty good for a coloured man. That doesn't satisfy me. I want to be as good as any one. It's frightfully noisy here, he went on. Couldn't we find a quieter spot?

It's noisy all over the place. Downstairs, there's a jazz-band. Anyhow, if we go anywhere else we're sure to be followed. I came up here to get away from the confusion and you can see how successful I've been. Why don't you call on me in New York?

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 I'm not living in New York. I'm going back to Philadelphia tomorrow. Later, I hope to return.

When?

I don't know. He grinned. You see, I haven't a bean. Got to work at something while I practise writing, and I haven't the faintest notion what I can do.

Interrupted by a terrifying scream, they turned to see Sylvia and Rumsey, one tugging at each ankle, dragging Lutie off the bed. Clinging to the tiger-skin, kicking, shrieking, she fell to the floor.

Here you, be careful of my skins! Adora warned them harshly.

It's all right, 'Dora, Sylvia replied. I'll put it back.

Unwinding the screaming Lutie, Rumsey assisted her to her feet and began to dance with her while he sang ribaldly:

You bum, you! Lutie pummelled him.

Randolph Pettijohn approached the pair in the window.

Ah doan never seem to fin' no chance to speak to you, Miss Mary, he began.

Byron Kasson turned and walked away. Mary realized that she had no right to stop him.

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 An' Ah got somethin' to say, an' dere ain' much time lef' to say et in, the King continued. Ah knows Ah ain' yo' kin', but you's mine. Ah wants a nice, 'spectable 'ooman for a wife. . . Mary opened her mouth to speak. . . Wait a minute. Ah ain't elegant. Ah ain' got no eddication lak you, but Ah got money, plenty of et, an' Ah got love. Ah'd mek you happy an' you'd give me what Ah wants, a 'spectable 'ooman. Ef you want to, we'd live on Strivers' Row. ..

At last Mary succeeded in stopping him. I'm sorry, Mr. Pettijohn, she said, but it's no use. You see, I don't love you.

Dat doan mek no difference, he whispered softly. Lemme mek you.

I'm afraid it's impossible, Mary asserted more firmly.

The Bolito King regarded her fixedly and with some wonder. You cain' mean no, he said. Ah's willin' to wait, an' to wait some time, but Ah gotta git you. You jes' what Ah desires.

It's impossible, Mary repeated sternly, as she turned away.

The room had now become pandemonium. Singly and in couples the crowd danced the Black Bottom and the Charleston. The phonograph was kept incessantly active. Drinks were poured out lavishly. Guymon Hooker, indeed, playfully emptied a bottle of Scotch through an open window. At last, apparently, Adora had had all she could stand.

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 Rising, she pointed her finger towards the door.

Get out of here, the whole pack of you! she commanded. Go to the garage or the kitchen or the w. c. or the front lawn or go drown yourselves in the ocean. I don't give a damn where you go, just so you get out of here.

The group, aware that Adora, offended, was capable of cutting names off her invitation list, heeded the warning and slunk towards the door. As Mary passed her, Adora held out her hand.

I don't mean you, dearie, she said. You stay here with me.

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With Olive Hamilton, who worked as a responsible secretary-stenographer for a white lawyer on Wall Street—Olive herself was seven-eighths white—Mary occupied an apartment on the sixth storey of a building on Edgecombe Avenue, that pleasant thoroughfare facing the rocky cliff surmounted by City College. Neither of the girls earned very much money, but their salaries were supplemented by occasional welcome cheques from their families which made it possible for them to live comfortably, especially as Olive was an excellent cook. Mary could fry an egg and boil coffee, but here her culinary capacities ended.

Each of the girls had her own bedroom; the use of the sitting-room they shared. The sitting-room, though small, was pleasant. The furniture included an upholstered couch, several easy chairs, a desk, a table with an electric lamp, and a phonograph. Blue-flowered chintz curtains hung at the window. The walls were brightened by framed reproductions of paintings by Bellini and Carpaccio which Mary had collected during a journey through Italy.

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 Olive's personal taste inclined to the luxurious. Her dressing-table was hung in lace over pink satin and her bed was covered with a spread of the same materials. On the dressing-table was laid out a toilet-set of carved ivory, an extravagance which had cost her a great deal of economy in other directions. A bottle of Narcisse Noir stood near the toilet-set. Framed, on a table, and on the walls, were many photographs of friends. A French worsted doll lay dejected in one corner.

Mary's taste was more sober. There was only one picture in her room, a reproduction of the Monna Lisa. Her bed-cover was plain white; her dressing-table austere and generally devoid of articles, save for inexpensive brush, comb, and mirror. On the shelves of a bookcase were ranged volumes by James Branch Cabell, Anatole France, Jean Cocteau, Louis Bromfield, Aldous Huxley, Sherwood Anderson, Somerset Maugham, Edmond Gosse, Elinor Wylie, James Huneker, and others. Several Negro writers were represented by inscribed copies: Charles W. Chesnutt by The Conjure Woman, James Weldon Johnson by Fifty Years, Jean Toomer by Cane, Claude McKay by Harlem Shadows, W. E. B. Du Bois by The Souls of Black Folk, Walter White by The Fire in the Flint, Jessie Fauset by There is Confusion. In addition, on her writing-table stood a photograph of her father, in a silver frame, and usually a row of a dozen or so of the latest books which she had borne home from

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 the library in an effort to keep abreast with the best of the modern output, an altruistic endeavour which enabled her to offer her patrons advice when they were in doubt, as so often she found they were.

Mary's life was simple but full: she found she had very little time to spare. Six days a week, and one evening, she worked in the library. Leaving the library usually in the afternoon around five, she often went to the Park for a walk. Then she came home, changed her dress, and read or mended her clothes while Olive cooked dinner. In the evening, frequently there would be callers: the girls knew all the young men and women in the Harlem literary circles, most of the young school-teachers, doctors, lawyers, and dentists. To some extent they mingled with, but did not entertain, the richer social set that lived in the splendid row of houses Stanford White had designed on One hundred and thirty-ninth Street, or in other pleasant localities. These people occasionally invited Mary or Olive to large dinner or bridge-parties. The girls also encountered them at dances. It had become, Olive observed cynically to Mary, quite the thing for these more affluent folk to take up with the young intellectuals since their work had begun to appear in the Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, the American Mercury, and the New Republic. The young intellectuals accepted these hitherto unfamiliar attentions without undue humility, at the same time laughing a good deal about them among themselves. Times

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 had changed indeed when brains, rather than money, a lighter colour, or straight hair, was the password to social favour. The limits of the Blue Vein Circle were being extended.

The girls took in most of the good plays and musical entertainments, revues and song recitals alike, downtown, usually sitting in the balcony to save expense, although Olive was light enough and Mary's features were sufficiently Latin so that they were not rudely received when they asked at the box-office for places in the orchestra. Once or twice, however, when they had been escorted to the theatre by some man of darker colour, they had been caused some humiliation and embarrassment. On one such occasion, after the usher had seated them, the house-manager had descended the aisle to demand a view of their stubs. On examination, he informed them that a mistake had been made, assuring them that their seats were for another night. He refused, moreover, to relinquish the stubs and escorted them to the lobby where he stated that he would willingly exchange them for balcony tickets, as the orchestra for this particular evening had been sold out. The lesson was learned. Thereafter Olive always took charge of the stubs and, if a view of them were requested, held them up so that the figures might be deciphered, but refused to permit them to leave her fingers.

Occasionally, caught in the lower part of town at an inconvenient hour, the question arose as to where

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 one might eat. Olive alone was white enough to be spared any anxiety on this count, and even Mary, accompanied by Olive, succeeded in passing, but when their companion had unmistakably African features, difficulties arose. Once, indeed, when their escort had been a very black Negro of international reputation they had been ejected from a hotel dining-room. The head-waiter who was acquainted with Olive and was quite aware that she had Negro blood, explained that he himself had no objection to serving coloured people, but that X was so undeniably black that the patrons of the restaurant might object to his proximity. The taboo, it appeared, was solely one of colour, and there were, it sometimes occurred to Mary, the highest advantages, both social and economic, in being near white or yellow, or, if dark, possessed of Spanish features and glib enough with words in some foreign tongue to convince the waiter that one belonged to a dark European race, but, unfortunately, as Olive knew well to her cost—she had once been insulted by a policeman because a black man had accompanied her to a Negro restaurant—in certain public places in Harlem the reverse difficulty arose.

With one young man in particular, Howard Allison, the girls were accustomed to discuss these and allied problems which touched their very existence. Allison's father had been born a slave. He was nine years old when he was freed. Later he had become an itinerant preacher. By scrimping, his fam-

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 ily had managed to send Howard to Harvard, and afterwards to Columbia Law School. He had just begun to practise his profession; as yet he was quite destitute of clients. Handsome and tall, dark brown in colour, he had personal reasons for being seriously interested in the perplexing phases of the Negro problem.

One night he came in after dinner—Olive, expecting him, had prepared a large pot of coffee—with Richard Fort Sill, a young man who was so white that, like Olive, below the line he was never taken for a Negro.

They became expansive over the coffee and cigarettes.

Of course, Howard was saying, it isn't so bad for us as it was for those who came before. We at least have Harlem.

Sill began to snicker. The Mecca of the New Negro! The City of Refuge! he cried derisively.

I don't know that we even have Harlem, Olive argued, so many white people come up here now to the cabarets. Why, in one or two places they've actually tried to do a little jim crowing!

Think of it! Howard replied. It isn't, he went on, that we want to mingle with the whites—I mean that we don't want to much more than we are already compelled to—but it is a bore to have them all over our places while we are excluded from their theatres and restaurants merely on account of our colour, theatres and restaurants which admit Chi-

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 nese and Hindus—if I wore a turban or a burnous I could go anywhere—and prostitutes of any nationality. Why, a white prostitute can go places where a coloured preacher would be refused admittance.

True enough, Counsellor, Sill drawled. There's no social line drawn in jail anyway. Probably Marcus Garvey is treated just as well as his fellow convicts. . . . He was lounging in a chair with his hand hanging so far over one arm that his cigarette almost singed the rug. . . . It all comes down, he went on, to that question the ofays are always asking each other: would you like your sister to marry a Negro? You must realize, my dear coloured brethren, that social equality means a mingling of the sexes of the two races. Sill's tone was tinged with a bitter irony.

Well, Howard laughed, the buckras should have thought of that earlier, before you were born, Dick. How did you get as white as you are?

The Southern explanation is that Sherman marched to the sea.

They all laughed.

He must have had a considerable and very vital army, was Olive's comment. You know as well as I do that practically every other ofay in the South has a coloured half-brother and you know how many successful intermarriages there have been, especially in the West Indies. It strikes me as particularly amusing what they have to say, these ofays, about the geniuses of our race. Oh yes, they admit that

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 Pushkin was a genius, that Dumas was a genius, but it was because they had white blood! Apparently miscegenation is a very fine thing indeed after it has happened, but for God's sake don't let it happen!

You know very well, Mary inserted, as she set down her empty cup, that the best people of our race object to mixed marriages more strenuously than the whites do. I believe if the social barriers were let down there would be fewer of them than there are now.

And if the barriers were let down, another great factor would be eliminated, Howard asserted, the present advantage of being as near white as possible. Why, the white Negro—you, Dick, or Olive—can go anywhere, to any hotel or theatre, without being challenged. You know the number of us that have gone even farther than that.

Buda Green is passing, Olive put in. I met her on Fifth Avenue last Sunday. She was with a white man and she tipped me a wink. Later, she called me up and told me all about it. You can't blame her. I couldn't do it, though. No matter what happens, I stick to my race.

Mary noted that a more intense expression had come into Dick Sill's face.

You say that, he said, but I wonder how much you mean. Think how much easier it is to get jobs if you don't acknowledge your race. Why, even in the Negro theatre they won't engage dark girls. In their world, the white world, they won't even give

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 you a look-in at anything good if you're not somewhere near their colour. Ollie, do you think for one moment you'd be engaged as a private secretary if you were black? You know you wouldn't. And the same thing is true of me. Well, I've thought it all out and I'm going to pass!

Dick! The trio cried out simultaneously.

Yes, he went on defiantly. Not today or tomorrow perhaps, but sooner or later I'm going to pass, go over the line, and marry a white woman. It serves them jolly well right for forcing us to. I'd like to start a movement for all us near whites to pass. Ina short time there wouldn't be any Negro problem. There wouldn't even be any Negroes.

Well, a good many have preceded you, Howard said. I've heard there are about eight thousand in New York alone.

I couldn't do it, Olive asserted. I just couldn't do it. Somehow I feel my race.

What race? cried Dick. What race do you feel? If you lived in Brazil and had one drop of white blood you'd be considered white. Here the reverse is true. What's the coloured race ever done for you? Dick, now thoroughly worked up, demanded. What?

Well, they haven't done anything particularly for or against me, but somehow in spirit I belong to them. I know that. I don't feel white. What you do is your business, just as it's Buda's business. I just couldn't do it myself, that's all.

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 Mary was conciliatory. We go round and round like squirrels in a cage and we never get anywhere, she said. Is there any solution? Sometimes I like to think there is, and sometimes I don't really care. Do you know, when we keep away from this subject, we have so much pleasure among ourselves that I sometimes think it isn't very important. . . she hesitated. . . if a thoughtless white person occasionally is rude. You can laugh all you like, Dick, but Harlem is a sort of Mecca. In some ways it's even an advantage to be coloured. Certainly on the stage it's no handicap. It's almost an asset. And now the white editors are beginning to regard Negroes as interesting novelties, like white elephants or black roses. They'll print practically anything our coloured writers send in. . ..

That won't last. Dick interrupted her fiercely. The time is coming and soon enough, at that, when the Negro artist will have to compete with the white artist on an equal plane if he expects to make any impression. I think the ofays must be getting tired of saying "Pretty good for a Nigger."

Howard had been meditating. I believe, he said at last, a trifle sententiously, Mary thought, that there is a solution for what is called the race problem. . . . The others all stared at him. . . . You know old Booker T was all for conciliation; then Du Bois came along and was all for an aggressive policy. Now neither of these methods worked for a very simple reason, because fundamentally, and gener-

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 ally speaking, the white race is not vitally interested in the Negro problem. In the mass they are quite indifferent to it. It doesn't bother them, so they just forget it. I learned that much at Harvard. They don't argue about it or even think about it much. Rather, they are inclined to ignore it, until some jig or other annoys them and then they lynch him or start a riot or something.

Then, he continued, still speaking earnestly, there is the policy of the young coloured intellectuals, from whom we have heard so much during the past two years, which is simply to adopt a mental attitude of equality and break the bars down gradually through the work of our artists. That won't be successful either, except for the artists. Of course, Paul Robeson and Roland Hayes and Countee Cullen can go anywhere within reason. They will be invited to white dinner parties, but I don't see how that's going to affect the rest of us.

Why not? Olive demanded.

Because the white people they meet will regard them as geniuses, in other words, exceptions. Yes, they will say to themselves, these are certainly unusually brilliant and delightful individuals; it's a pity all Negroes aren't like them. So they will go on neglecting the plight in which our respectable middle class finds itself.

Well, Mary said, I thought you had a solution.

So I have. It's simple enough to state, not so

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 easy to achieve. It's merely economic. As soon as we, in the mass, become rich enough we will become powerful. You can't keep up the bars when your pocket-book is affected, no matter how violent your prejudice. As soon as we are rich enough, we will go wherever we really want to go, and do what we want to do. White people may sneer at us, but they will receive us. Look at the Jews. A lot of Nordics despise them, but they can't ignore them. They're much too important financially.

But, Counsellor, you're only stating Booker T's old premise, Dick put in. He said all that—not, to be sure, quite so bluntly—and what has happened? Any time one of us saves a little money, the white world becomes green-eyed with jealousy, to say nothing of our own group.

Booker I did say something like that tentatively, Howard admitted, but we've got to work faster than he expected us to. He urged Negroes to acquire land and work it. It's better to acquire land and sell it. And it's true that in the South the poor whites are envious if we get on and in Harlem the shines are jealous. I said it was going to be difficult. All of us have very serious handicaps to overcome. Nevertheless. ..

Bottle it, Howard, Olive cried, yawning. I've heard enough of this lecture for one evening. Let's listen to Clara Smith. She wound up the phono-

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 graph and put on a record. Soon the moaning wonder of the Blues singer's voice sounded in the little room:

The tears were streaming down Mary's cheeks. The others were sitting in solemn, dejected silence.

Oh hell, Ollie, Dick complained, I don't see that you've improved matters much. 'Try the Funny Blues!

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Four or five weeks had slipped by almost imperceptibly since the week-end party at Adora's when one day, taking stock, Mary was amazed to discover that, although she had written her mother at least once every week, she had not mentioned the proposal made her by Randolph Pettijohn. Proposals of marriage were rare enough, eventful enough, so that they deserved at least a passing reference in the chronicle of events she sent home, more especially because, till now, her mother had enjoyed what practically amounted to her complete confidence. As a matter of self-discipline and to discover the truth in her own soul, if such a thing were possible, Mary sat down to her desk to repair the omission and tried faithfully to give a true account of what had occurred, with her own reaction to it. After she had penned the last line she realized why she hadn't written about this particular incident before: she had been ashamed. Ashamed to confess to her mother that she had attracted the attention of such a man. She was also, almost mystically, aware of something else: Byron Kasson had enlisted her sympathy, awakened her imagination, to an extraordinary degree. Olive had often assured Mary that she was cold. Everybody says you're cold, that

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 you have no natural feeling, Olive had complained. Why don't you let yourself go once in a while? There was at least this much truth in this criticism, Mary confessed to herself, that she did not let herself go. She had an instinctive horror of promiscuity, of being handled, even touched, by a man who did not mean a good deal to her. This might, she sometimes argued with herself, have something to do with her white inheritance, but Olive, who was far whiter, was lacking in this inherent sense of prudery. At any rate, whatever the cause, Mary realized that she was different in this respect from most of the other girls she knew. The Negro blood was there, warm and passionately earnest: all her preferences and prejudices were on the side of the race into which she had been born. She was as capable, she was convinced, of amorous emotion, as any of her friends, but the fact remained that she was more selective. Oh, the others were respectable enough; they did not involve themselves too deeply. On the other hand, they did not flee from a kiss in the dark. A casual kiss in the dark was a repellant idea to Mary. What she wanted was a kiss in the light—with the right man, and the right man hitherto had never appeared. Now, thinking of Byron Kasson, she trembled as she gradually became aware of what sort of acknowledgment she was dragging out of her innermost soul. It startled her somewhat to perceive how little unwelcome to her it would be to encounter this man

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 again. She did not mention Byron Kasson in her letter to her mother nor, conscious of this fact, could she bring herself to do so.

It was the middle of September; the sky was overcast with clouds and a slight drizzle was falling. Ollie had not yet returned from the office. Mary, alone, decided that a walk would agree admirably with her mood. Slipping a blue jersey and a raincoat over her woollen frock and pulling a tam-o'shanter over her head, she started forth. The wind had risen and the raindrops increased in size. They beat against her cheeks and wet her hair and ankles. Tingling with health, she was grateful for this attention from the elements.

It had been, she reflected, a pleasant week. She had principally been occupied in borrowing from several private collections specimens of primitive African sculpture and she had been astonishingly successful—lucky, she called it—in unearthing worthy examples, representing the creative skill of a variety of tribes from different localities in Africa. Moreover, early dates were more or less reasonably ascribed to some of them. One strangely beautiful head was said to have been executed in the tenth century, or even earlier, while a box, exquisite in proportion and design, was said to have been created in the fourteenth century. Mary was beginning to recognize the feel of the older work, the soft, smooth texture, like that of the best Chinese porcelains, of the wood, so different from that of the

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 coarser, later pieces. She knew something too, now, about the more primitive design, lovelier in its conception, because it was more honest, than the more elaborate, later traceries, created under Portuguese influence. . . . There had been a pleasant dinner party or two; she recalled with particular pleasure an evening at the Weston Underwoods' when she had met the new secretary to the Haytian consul. He spoke only French and she welcomed this opportunity to practise the language with a young man made more tolerant, perhaps, by his obvious interest in herself. It was agreeable, too, to meet some one who knew a great deal about Cocteau and Morand and Proust, knew about them, that is, in their relation to French literature in general. René Maran, the author of Batouala, he had actually been acquainted with. . . . One night, with Howard and Olive, she had witnessed Arms and the Man at the Guild. Theatre, and another she had attended a rent-party, given by some indigent girl friends, had paid fifty cents, and had been rewarded by a shower of gin and orange-juice over the front of one of her favourite frocks. Carbona, the next morning, had only partially removed the stain. The clumsy young man who had been responsible for the catastrophe had seemed more put out by the loss of the gin—his carelessness had exhausted the supply—than over the injury to her dress. Otherwise, however, it had been a gay evening. There had been dancing to the music of a phonograph in a two-room apartment

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 —the dimensions of the largest chamber were about twelve by eight feet—and she had danced until two. Nearly everybody danced every night: why? Mary asked herself. Is it that we want to forget? She was reminded of a Negro story called Melanctha, in Gertrude Stein's Three Lives. A white assistant in the library had brought this book to her to read and she had been recommending it ever since, but it seemed that no other copies were available. She recalled now a passage from this story which she had committed to memory. Dr. Campbell was speaking to Melanctha: It ain't very easy for you to understand what I was meaning by what I was just saying to you, and perhaps some of the good people I like so wouldn't think very much, any more than you do, Miss Melanctha, about the ways I have to be good. But that's no matter Miss Melanctha. What I mean Miss Melanctha by what I was just saying to you is, that I don't, no, never, believe in doing things just to get excited. You see Miss Melanctha I mean the way so many of the coloured people do it. Instead of just working hard and caring about their working and living regular with their families and saving up all their money, so they will have some to bring their children up better, instead of living regular and doing like that and getting all their new ways from just decent living, the coloured people just keep running around and perhaps drinking and doing everything bad they can ever think of, and not just because they like all

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 those bad things that they are always doing, but only just because they want to get excited. No, Miss Melanctha, you see I am a coloured man myself and I ain't sorry, and I want to see the coloured people being good and careful and always honest and living just as regular as can be, and I am sure Miss Melanctha, that that way everybody can have a good time, and be happy and keep right and be busy, and not always have to be doing bad things for new ways to get excited. Yes, Miss Melanctha, I certainly do like everything to be good, and quiet, and I certainly do think that is the best way for all us coloured people. No, Miss Melanctha too, I don't mean this except only just the way I say it. I ain't got any other meaning Miss Melanctha, and it's that what I mean when I am saying about being really good. It ain't Miss Melanctha to be pious and not liking every kind of people, and I don't say ever Miss Melanctha that when other kind of people come regular into your life you shouldn't want to know them always. What I mean Miss Melanctha by what I am always saying is, you shouldn't try to know everybody just to run around and get excited. It's that kind of way of doing that I hate so always Miss Melanctha, and that is so bad for all us coloured people. I don't know as you understand now any better what I mean by what I was just saying to you. But you certainly do know now Miss Melanctha, that I always mean it what I say when I am talking. . . . Some time during the eve-

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 ning a strange young man with a deep baritone voice—the quality reminded her a little of Paul Robeson's—and a simple faith had sung Spirituals. Mary, recalling, softly murmured:

Funny thing about the Spirituals, Mary reflected. I'm not religious. Nobody I know is really religious. We are, for the most part, pagans, natural pagans, but when we were slaves we turned naturally and gratefully to a religion which promised joy everlasting and a reunion with relatives—sold up and down the river—in the life to come. Now, when oppression has been removed from some of us, we revert quite simply to paganism. Those from whom it has not been removed—the servant-girls and the poor—are glad to continue to pray and shout, but I don't believe they really feel faith—except as an escape from the drudgery of their lives. They don't really stop playing Numbers or dancing on Sunday or anything else that their religion forbids them to do. They enjoy themselves in church on Sunday as

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 they do in the cabarets on week-days. But the people who created the Spirituals must have felt a real faith, and that is why, I suppose, they touch most of us, knock us off our pins, and make us want to cry or shout.

Mary had arrived at the Park without encountering an acquaintance. She struck out down a path, the wet gravel crunching under her boots, the raindrops tossed by the wind from the dying leaves whipping her cheeks. She passed a clearing where a few days before, she remembered, she had witnessed a strange ceremony: some black people from one of the British West Indies—monkey-chasers they called them on Lenox Avenue; what a good story Rudolph Fisher had woven about one of them and the general Harlem attitude of distrust and even active dislike which they awakened—playing cricket with proper bats and wickets. She had stood for a moment watching them and listening to their Cockney speech. What a people we are! she meditated, cast into alien lands all over the earth, conforming, whether we like it or not, to the customs and manners and laws of folk who despise us, and yet everywhere, in spite of all obstacles, we manage to keep something of our own, even to make something of it. What other race in America, or anywhere else for that matter, has produced anything better than the Spirituals? Anything as good? was her succeeding interrogative boast. Yet the Spirituals had sprung from ignorant slaves, bending under the lash. Unknown black

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 bards, James Weldon Johnson had beautifully called them. . . ..

On her return to the apartment she discovered Olive on her knees in the kitchen mopping up a lake of cream.

Why is it, Olive demanded with a groan, that one can never open an ice-box door without something popping out?

Can I help you, Ollie?

Well, Mary, I wish you'd look at my holy bran muffins in the oven and see if they are done.

After complying with Olive's request, Mary went to her room, removed her wet clothes, washed and towelled herself thoroughly, drew on a dressing-gown and was ready for dinner.

Immediately they sat down to table, Olive began to chatter.

I stopped in at George Lister's this afternoon to make an appointment. Believe me, that sheik is popular. I don't know whether it's because he's such a good dentist or whether it's just his looks. The waiting-room was crowded. It was like a Sunday morning service at Abyssinian Baptist.

How's Lenore?

Oh, George says she's doing all right and of course he assured me the baby is sweet.

We ought to go to see Lenore.

Um. Olive's mouth was full of fried chicken. After a little she went on, Howard's got a case.

No! I'm so glad, Ollie!

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 Yes, he's defending a poor old grandpa who is victim of a landlord. He's going to invoke the rent laws. Naturally, she added, he won't get a cent.

Poor Howard! He's had such a time getting started.

I don't mean maybe! He's got guts, though. Sometimes I wonder how he can stick it out.

They all have to begin. Doctors and lawyers can't advertise: it isn't considered professional.

I know, but look at George's practice.

Well, there aren't so many good dentists.

Not so many good-looking ones, at any rate.

They ate in silence for a time.

Where did you hear about Howard? Mary inquired.

He telephoned me. . . . Mary was aware of a curious clang-tint in Olive's voice. . . . Saw Sergia Sawyer at George's.

You must have picked up a lot of gossip.

She talked as fast as her tongue would wag. Said Buda Green's going to marry that Mr. Eddie.

He doesn't know?

And nobody's going to tell him. It's funny, Olive went on, as she poured the rich chicken gravy over her mashed potatoes, how we love to fool white people.

Of course, she said, you can understand those cotton-picking jigs in the South; they've had to put up with centuries of deceit and treachery on the part of the ofays, but we—people like you and me—are

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 that way too. We've never suffered from white deceit and treachery and yet we're more or less like the others when it comes to handing the bunk to the ofays. Whenever my boss asks me a question and the correct answer would be derogatory to my race, I just naturally lie to him, although he's honestly interested. I can't help it. We're all alike that way.

A broad smile spread over Olive's face.

What are you laughing about, Ollie? Mary demanded.

I was thinking of a funny story the boss told me about his coloured butler. It seems Sam was several hours late one day and he apologized for his tardiness by explaining there had been a fire. The boss was solicitous. Did you lose much? he asked him. Everything Ah had, said Sam; Duh house burn 'way down to duh groun'; not a brick lef'. A day or two later the boss asks Sam what his new address is, and Sam replies: Why, Ah's livin' at duh same place.

Mary laughed as she spread butter on a bran muffin.

What else did Sergia tell you? she inquired.

Olive opened her eyes. Well, I'm glad to see you falling for gossip, Mary. That's hopefully human. Next you'll be falling for a pair of Oxford bags.

Don't tease me, Ollie.

I'm not teasing you, but I wish you'd be a little more open to infection. You must have been vac-

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 cinated against love. . . . I think, she added with some embarrassment, I'm going to marry Howard. . . . She made this announcement in a manner which suggested that the idea had just occurred to her.

Ollie dear, I'm so glad. Mary rose from her place to kiss her friend. When was it settled?

I told him last night that I thought I would and today I know I will. It's going to be soon, too. I'm not going to put it off till he's a regular butter and egg man. What's the use of waiting?

I'll miss you, Ollie.

I'll miss you too, you old darling. Olive impulsively ran around the table to return her friend's embrace. But we'll see a lot of each other just the same.

Mary went to the kitchen to bring in the blue Canton china dessert plates heaped with an aromatic pudding.

Sergia says Lasca Sartoris is back from Paris, Olive remarked.

Lasca the legendary! Where is she stopping?

With Sylvia for a few weeks until she can find an apartment. Sergia says she's brought back a flock of trunks: Poiret and Vionnet gowns and Reboux hats and fans and shoes and shawls and perfumes enough to fit out the whole Follies cast.

After she had assisted Olive in clearing the table and washing the dishes, Mary retired to her room to dress. Olive was waiting for Howard. Mary

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 had promised to attend a party at Hester Albright's, a prospect which aroused in her no anticipations of pleasure. Hester, a spinster of thirty-eight, lived with her mother, a deaf, querulous, garrulous, tiresome, old lady, on the fourth floor of an apartment building on St. Nicholas Avenue. They had migrated from Washington to Harlem about five years previously. Why, nobody exactly understood, as Washington society, according to Hester, was immeasurably superior to the Harlem variety. She was in the habit, indeed, of making invidious comparisons, the more mysterious when one considered that the Albrights apparently were sufficiently well off to live comfortably wherever they might choose. As a matter of fact, living expenses in Harlem were higher than in the national capital. I think, Olive had once remarked, that it amuses them to live here so they can tell us how awful we are. . . . If Hester and her mother looked down on Harlem, they did not enjoy a similar privilege with Brooklyn. The Brooklyn set ignored their very existence.

Hester was plain, far too plain to receive masculine attentions, but vain enough to conceive herself as irresistible. A thorough prig, she was easily shocked. She was, moreover, extremely critical, not only of others' actions but also of their very thoughts. She cherished her own idiosyncratic ideas about propriety, propriety in art, in dressing, in general conduct. She particularly assumed an aggressive and antagonistic attitude towards the new lit-

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 erary group which was springing up in Harlem, albeit it was fostered by most of the older intellectuals as one of the most promising indications of an eventual Negro supremacy. This antagonism, Mary suspected, was inspired by the fact that this younger group was more inclined to write about the squalor and vice of Harlem life than about the respectable elegance of Washington society.

About twice a year, moved, doubtless, Mary conceived, by some vaguely charitable urge—I must be kind to this poor girl, Mary could imagine her as thinking—Hester invited Mary to her home and Mary, who considered it her duty as a librarian to mingle with as many different kinds of people as possible, dutifully accepted these invitations.

Tonight, however, she assured herself ruefully, as she surveyed her reflection and smoothed out her pale-blue silk dress before the mirror, she was in no mood for this expedition. Olive's announcement, coming as it had fast on her own self-admission in the afternoon, had somewhat upset her. She would have preferred remaining at home with Howard and Olive, later retiring to her own room where she might give herself up to her thoughts and make some attempt to unravel her perplexing mental tangle. She reminded herself, however, that she had given her promise, and she invariably made it a rigid rule of conduct to keep engagements to which she had pledged herself. Nevertheless a sigh escaped her as she raised the shade to open the win-

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 dow. It was no longer raining, she perceived, and she could therefore easily walk the short distance to the Albrights' apartment.

It was shortly after nine when Hester opened the door for her—the Albrights did not keep a servant.

Rest your wrap, Mary, Hester adjured her and then led her guest into the tiny sitting-room where Mrs. Albright, a withered, wrinkled, old woman with a hooked nose, waved her ear-trumpet sceptre from her arm-chair throne. On the other side of the cheerful, open fire sat Orville Snodes, who was something or other at the Harlem Y. M. C. A. Mary detested him, with no more personal reason for doing so than the fact that he bored her. The mere sight of his round, brown, empty face, so like an Ethiopian moon, exasperated her.

How are you, Mrs. Albright? Mary greeted the old lady.

How have you been? Hester's ancient mother croaked.

Mary let her relaxed palm fall limply into Orville Snodes's hand.

Mrs. Albright was the widow of a building-contractor and it had always been understood—although no one had ever heard Mrs. Albright say so directly—that she felt she had married beneath her, despite the fact that she owed her present easy mode of living to this curious expression of humility. At any rate, whatever might be her state of mind in regard to this episode, she had made at least one

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User:SnowyCinema/Q/2024

 * My Life Is in Your Hands by Eddie Cantor!!!!!!!!!!!!
 * Seven Days Whipping by John Biggs
 * Spider Boy by Carl Van Vechten
 * Travelling Standing Still by Genevieve Taggard
 * Upstairs, Downstairs by Edith Bishop Sherman
 * Isabel Galloway Emslie Hutton — With a Woman's Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol
 * Essays by Christopher Morley — find/scan if needed
 * Off the Deep End — Morley
 * Author:George Washington Ogden

Film

 * Lights of New York
 * Film: Steamboat Willie IMMEDIATELY
 * The Gallopin' Gaucho also

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