When the door closed behind this oddly assorted pair, Gaitskill broke out in a loud laugh.
II
AN ART TO ART TALK
“Boss,” Vinegar inquired, the moment they stepped out of the bank, “is you gwine converse me ’bout some kind of wuck?”
“Yes, I have a little proposition which——”
“Please, suh, less you an’ me go somewheres an’ set down,” Vinegar pleaded in a tone which throbbed with fatigue. “Nothin’ don’t make me as tired as talkin’ ’bout wuck.”
Vinegar led him through the narrow, winding streets of the negro settlement known as Dirty-Six, and conducted him finally to the Shoofly church. Opening the door, he brought out two rickety chairs, placed them in the shade of a chinaberry tree, sighed audibly, and sat down. Rouke placed his chair against the trunk of the tree and leaned back.
“Now, boss, beller dem sad news to me easy!” Vinegar admonished. “Don’t fergit it offen yo’ mind dat my maw fetched me up meek an’ mild an’ de good Lawd called me to preach. A real, stiddy job of reg’lar wuck would shore bust my cornstitution down.”
Being totally unaccustomed to negro whimsicalities, Mr. Shirley Rouke listened to this without a smile. His cool, steady eyes gazed at Vinegar deliberately, appraisingly, captiously, and Vinegar felt the fountains of fun turn dry as dust within him. This man would not take any nigger foolishness.
Without knowing it, Rouke had made his task doubly hard by causing Vinegar to feel ill at ease.
“I’m a motion picture director and producer for the Gitagraft Company,” Rouke began in a voice which clicked like the keys of a typewriter. “I want to produce an All-Negro picture, und’stand? I want you to help me get the actors and extras, help me to find my locations, give me the right steer on everything, and dope out everything I need to know about the blacks, see?”