PORGY drove slowly down King Charles Street, and appraised the prospects for hitching and settling awhile in the narrow strip of shade against the walls of the buildings. The day was sweltering, and both cripple and goat were drooping beneath the steady pressure of the sun.
A man passed, walking briskly. Porgy at once recognized the long, easy stride, and the soft felt hat drawn rather low over the eyes. He reached out and gave a slight twist to the tail of his somnambulant animal, which resulted in a shambling trot that brought the vehicle abreast of the pedestrian. But at that moment the gentleman stopped, produced a key, and opening the door of an office, passed in without looking around.
Porgy eyed the office and its environs with evident satisfaction. The building stood very near the old apothecary shop; and between it and its neighbor to the east was an entrance way several feet in width, which breathed forth an inviting coolness from its deep shade. No one was passing at the moment. Porgy turned the head of his beast toward the entrance, gave a sudden twist to the tail, and drove audaciously across the pavement, and into the retreat. Then he hitched his wagon a few feet from the street, and seated himself, cup in hand, at the pavement’s inner edge.
“Yuh bes’ git along out of Mr. Alan’ do’way wid dat goat befo’ he fin’ yuh. Ain’t yuh onduhstan’ gentlemen ain’t likes tuh smell goat?”
Porgy looked up and met the threatening gaze of Simon Frasier.
Frasier was a practising attorney-at-law. He was well past fifty years of age, and his greying wool looked very white in comparison with his uncompromisingly black skin. He had voted the democratic ticket in the dark period of reconstruction, when such action on his part took no little courage, and accordingly enjoyed the almost unlimited toleration of the aristocracy. Without possessing the official sanction of the State for the practice of his profession, he was, by common consent among the lawyers, permitted to represent his own people in the police and magistrates’ courts and to turn his hand to other small legal matters into which it was thought inadvisable to enquire too deeply.
Porgy regarded his accuser stonily.
“Ob course gentlemen ain’t likes tuh smell goat,” he replied.
The door opened, and Archdale looked out. From where Porgy sat he could have touched him with his hand; yet the cripple’s gaze never wavered from the face of the negro, and his expression remained unchanged. Forestalling an interruption, he hastened on, in a voice that had become mildly incredulous, as he continued, “But it can’t be dat attuh knowing buckra long as yuh been know um, yuh ain’t onduhstan’ um any better dan tuh t’ink dey would dribe away po’ cripple in de heat.”
Archdale made a movement that actually crossed Porgy’s line of vision; but the beggar’s face gave no sign of recognition. His voice rose to a pitch of indignation: