“All you got to do is to be dar wid yo’ dollar,” Red Cutt answered as he stepped through the green-baize door of the saloon.

V
A NEW THING

The ancient Greek of apostolic days was not alone in his eagerness “to see and to hear some new thing.” When the word went abroad in the negro settlements of Tickfall that there was to be a new thing at the lodge that night, cost of admission being one dollar, three hundred and twenty-five negroes, by methods distinctly Ethiopian, secured the necessary dollar, which for that night only was the password to the lodge.

When Red Cutt appeared upon the scene, he by himself was worth the price of admission. He had dressed himself in a faint imitation of the costume of an aviator. That costume was a mixture of all the varied uniforms that he had seen, and portions of which he could acquire.

Beginning at the feet, for some reason known only to himself, he wore a pair of spurs; around his legs were leather puttees—to that extent he resembled a cavalry officer. His pantaloons were hunting-breeches. His coat was a hunting-coat, somewhat appropriate because it was rain-proof, and might shed oil easily. His head-covering was a cap with a rubber visor, and his eyes were covered with enormous automobile goggles. He wore gauntlets on his hands, and somewhere he had acquired four brass buttons, from each of which was suspended a gaudy ribbon. He had evidently acquired these decorative ribbons at some association of drummers or the convention of some political party. One ribbon bore the words “Reception Committee.” A second ribbon was inscribed “Delegate,” and a third ribbon bore the magic word “Information.”

He was escorted to a seat on the rostrum by the president of the lodge, and looking through his automobile goggles at the crowd of negroes assembled, he was surprised, and felt some uneasiness.

He had expected not more than one hundred negroes. That would have been a crowd that he could manage; but when he found exactly three times that number, the assemblage looked to him too much like a mob—or at least it looked like it might be easily converted into one.

Hitch Diamond rose to his feet.

“Brudders, dar is a cullud pusson here to-night who is come on a important job. He is de only nigger in dis country whut ever went up in a airship. He has had plenty expe’unce as a flyin’ man, an’ he has come to learn us all how to fly up!”

“Whar we gwine fly to?” a voice spoke up.