Four days later Mr. Shirley Rouke sat beside the mahogany table in the office of Colonel Tom Gaitskill, president of the Tickfall bank, and told him of his plans.
“Do you know anything about negroes, Mr. Rouke?” Gaitskill inquired.
“Not a dang thing!” Rouke grinned. “Their faces and hands are black and I presume they are also black under their clothes, but I don’t know. All of them seem to answer promptly to the name of George. The Pullman porters are accommodating everywhere except in Mississippi, which has an anti-tipping law. I spent a month in New Orleans about twenty years ago, but didn’t get chummy with any smokes.”
“Your education has been sadly neglected,” Gaitskill laughed. “But you are now in a fair way to overcome its defects. Sir, you have my sincerest sympathy.”
“If you mean you are sorry for me, I don’t see any cause for your heart-break,” Rouke declared. “This is a simple business proposition. I’ll look around a little, get my locations, write my scenario, employ my actors, pay ’em a good salary, take my pictures and hike!”
“It sounds easy,” Gaitskill remarked gravely.
Then he laughed. Finally he asked: “Did you ever see a photograph of a negro?”
“Sure! I’ve seen Booker T.’s mug!”
“He don’t count,” Gaitskill said. “It’s a long, long way to Tuskegee, and these niggers around here could not pronounce that word if they practiced for a week.”
The door opened and a squat-legged, pot-bellied negro entered, removing his hat. His head was bald except for a tuft of moss-like hair growing above each ear, making him look like a fat-faced mule wearing a blind bridle. His thick lips pouted like the lips of a fretted child.