But Chaplin was determined not to turn our informal little soirée into an autograph evening. And oh, it was delicious to see the king of the comics skipping hither and thither and declaring he had no pen. The brownie flew into the anteroom and returned triumphant with her vanity case containing card and pencil and announced that she always kept herself provided with the right things for her customers.
I diverted her attention from her quarry by pouring her a tumbler of Jamaica rum, and we started a game. Soon the little brown jug was full and running over and chasing everybody. She said that she was aware that I was the contact man between Harlem and the Village. And I felt so flattered to be taken as a sweetman that I tried to imitate the famous Harlem strut. To Crystal Eastman, who was acting as hostess and who was as usual distinctively dressed, the brown jug confided that she would like to exchange visitors between Harlem and Greenwich Village. And soon she was passing out her cards. But I noticed that the address was crossed out. She explained that she was rooming temporarily, but said she would let us have her new address as soon as she was fixed up. Her last place had recently been raided by the police!
Well, that was one evening, a surprise party that nobody had dreamed about, something really different and delightful. Parties are so often tediously the same thing: swilling and scrappy unsatisfactory smart talk. I had a good time, which stirred me to thoughts of Philadelphia when I was railroading. I felt sure that none of the whites there had ever before had the pleasure of a brown madam at a bohemian party.
When I told the story of the party to some of the élite of Harlem, I was simply dumbfounded by their violent reaction. They insisted that the Negro race had been betrayed, because a little brown jug from Harlem had provided a little innocent diversion in Greenwich Village.
I didn't know what to say. So I hummed an old delicious ditty of my pre-blasé period: "Little brown jug, don't I love you...."
A Look at H.G. Wells
When H.G. Wells came over here to the Naval Conference as a star reporter for the liberal New York World and the neo-Tory London Daily Mail, his restless curiosity urged him to find time from his preoccupation with high international politics to bestow a little attention on The Liberator. Max Eastman had him to dinner at his home in Greenwich Village, and later there was an informal reception for the Liberator staff and collaborators.