IX
“Prancing Nigger, I t’ink it bery strange, dat Madame Ruiz, she nebba call.”
“Sh’o.”
“In August-Town, S’ciety less stuck-up dan heah!”
Ensconced in rocking-chairs, in the shade of the ample porch of the Villa Vista Hermosa, Mr. and Mrs. Mouth had been holding a desultory tête-à-tête.
It was a Sabbath evening, and a sound of reedy pipes and bafalons, from a neighbouring café, filled with a feverish sadness the brilliantly lamp-lit street.
“De airs ob de nabehs, dat dair affair, what matter mo’, am de chillen’s schoolin’.”
“Prancing Nigger, I hope your Son an’ Daughters will yet take dair Degrees, an’ if not from de University, den from Home. From heah.”
“Hey-ho-day, an’ dat would be a miracle!” Mr. Mouth mirthlessly laughed.
“Dose chillens hab learnt quite a lot already.”
“’Bout de shaps an’ cynemas!”
Mrs. Mouth disdained a reply.
She had taken the girls to the gallery at the Opera one night to hear “Louise,” but they had come out, by tacit agreement, in the middle of it: the plainness of Louise’s blouse, and the lack of tunes ... added to which, the suffocation of the gallery.... And—once bit twice shy—they had not gone back again.
“All your fambly need, Prancing Nigger, is social opportunity! But what is de good ob de Babtist parson?”
Mr. Mouth sketched a gesture.
“Sh’o, Edna, she some young yet.... But Miami dat distinguée; an’, doh I her mother, b’lieb me dat is one ob de choicest girls I see; an ’dat’s de trute.”
“It queer,” Mr. Mouth abstrusely murmured, “how many skeeter-bugs dair are ’bout dis ebenin’!”
“De begonias in de window-boxes most lik’ly draw dem. But as I was saying, Prancing Nigger, I t’ink it bery strange dat Madame Ruiz nebba call.”
“P’raps, she out ob town.”
“Accordin’ to de paper, she bin habing her back painted, but what dat fo’ I dunno.”
“Ah shouldn’t wonder ef she hab some trouble ob a dorsal kind; same as me gramma mumma long agone.”
“Dair’d be no harm in sendin’ one ob de chillens to enquire. Wha’ you t’ink, sah?” Mrs. Mouth demanded, plucking from off the porch a pale hanging flower with a languorous scent.
Mr. Mouth glanced apprehensively skyward.
The mutters of thunder and intermittent lightning of the finest nights.
“It’s a misfortnit we eber left Mediavilla,” he exclaimed uneasily, as a falling star, known as a thief star, sped swiftly down the sky.
“Prancing Nigger,” Mrs. Mouth rose, remarking, “befo’ you start to grummle, I leab you alone to your Jereymiads!”
“A misfortnit sho’ nuff,” he mused, and regret for the savannah country, and the tall palm-trees of his village, oppressed his heart. Moreover, his means (derived from the cultivation of the Musa paradisica, or Banana) seemed likely to prove erelong inadequate to support the whims of his wife, who after a lifetime of contented nudity, appeared to be now almost insatiable for dress.
A discordant noise from above interrupted the trend of his thoughts.
“Sh’o, she plays wid it like a toy,” he sighed, as the sound occurred again.
“Prancing Nigger, de water-supply cut off!”
“It’s de Lord’s will.”
“Dair’s not a drop, my lub, in de privy.”
“’Cos it always in use!”
“I b’lieb dat lil half-caste Ibum, ’cos I threaten to gib him notice, do somet’in’ out ob malice to de chain.”
“Whom de Lord loveth, He chasteneth!” Mr. Mouth observed, “an’ dose bery words (ef you look) you will find in de twelfth chapter, an’ de sixth berse ob de Book ob Hebrews.”
“Prancing Nigger, you datways selfish! Always t’inkin ’ob your soul, instead ob your obligations towards de fambly.”
“Why, wha’ mo’ can I do dan I’ve done?”
Mrs. Mouth faintly shrugged.
“I had hoped,” she said, “dat Nini would hab bin ob use to de girls, but dat seem now impossible!” For Mrs. Snagg had been traced to a house of ill-fame, where, it appeared, she was an exponent of the Hodeidah—a lascive Cunan dance.
“Understand dat any sort ob intimacy ’tween de Villa an’ de Closerie des Lilas Ah must flatly forbid.”
“Prancing Nigger, as ef I should take your innocent chillens to call on po’ Nini; not dat eberyt’ing about her at de Closerie is not elegant an’ nice. Sh’o, some ob de inmates ob dat establishment possess mo’ diamonds dan dair betters do outside! You’d be surprised ef you could see what two ob de girls dair, Dinah an’ Lew....”
“Enuf!”
“It isn’t always Virtue, Prancing Nigger, dat come off best!” And Mrs. Mouth might have offered further observations on the matter of ethics, had not her husband left her.