“Fo’ de Lawd, mister man, you can hab any waiter yo’ want.”
The head waiter seated me himself, and I was never waited on better in my life, and it was kept up as long as I stayed in the house. I expected to be interviewed about those concealed weapons, but was not, and the umbrella handle did service equally as well as a cannon.
The negro is strong on long words, and about three days after my calling down the head waiter, he stopped me as I was leaving the dining-room and said:
“Mister Henderson, what’s dis yer international complexions you told me about dat day?”
“Is it possible you don’t know, Sam? Don’t you attend church every Sunday?”
“I suah does, sar, but we hain’t got none of dose things about our church.”
“Oh, yes you have, only you don’t see all there is going on about the church. International complications, Sam, act the same on the heart as vermiform appendix does on the liver, and it is a serious thing when they both begin working at once.”
“Yes, sar,” said Sam, as he bowed me out, and there was a puzzled look on his face that proved to me that I had raised about twenty feet in his estimation. I was only there two days more, but I think he stood more in awe of me on account of the big words I tossed him as I passed him each day than of the two big guns he thought I had.
I was stopping in Detroit at one time and had been introduced by some would-be society sports to the smart set, and Detroit has a smart set, even if the people generally are bigotted. I suppose these society boys thought they would have some fun with me when they got me up against some of those society bathing costumes, but I did not balk at them. I had seen them before on people who did not lay claim to so much respectability.
Perhaps I should say why I claim that the people of Detroit are bigotted. I want to tell you, Billy, you can gamble that the people of any town are bigotted when they will not accept Standard time, but have Sun time for their business and claim that the railroad people are a half an hour out of the way. The so-called Christian people should rise above anything of this kind, for these two-time towns are the cause of more profanity than any other one thing that I know of. All the prayers of all the good people in Christendom will not keep the traveling men out of h— if they don’t get this fool idea out of their heads of having a time of their own in these jay towns, and it can only be a jay town that will keep that much behind the trains.