Figger came on. And Rouke nearly threw a fit.
Seizing the tray in both hands, Figger held it in front of him in a strained, awkward manner; he side-stepped into the focus of the camera, set his eyes straight at the lens where the country photographers used to tell us the “little bird” could be seen, and marched face-on to the table; he set the waiter down without changing his full-face position toward the camera, backed ten feet, side-stepped out of the focus, then squealed and kicked up his heels much as a mule colt would act when turned into a pasture!
“My—good—gosh!” Shirley Rouke shrieked. That is to say, this is the only remark he made which the law would permit of publication. “What did you mean by that stunt?”
“I wus havin’ my picture took, boss,” Figger informed him in frightened tones, for Figger was appalled by the language he had heard.
“But—but—why didn’t you act natural?” Rouke spluttered.
“Dat ain’t no way to do, boss,” Figger declared. “When us niggers gits our tintypes koodaked us is got to show bofe foots, bofe hands, bofe eyes, and bofe ears. We don’t take no sideways picture. Ef us don’t show all of ourse’ves, de niggers will figger dat one eye done got gouged out, or one ear done been cut off. Yes, suh, dat’s right.”
“Shore!” a chorus of negro voices answered. “Us ain’t gwine hab our pictures took no way but straight on!”
In hopeless impotence, Shirley Rouke turned to Peter Pellet for aid and comfort, and beheld that artist doubled up, helpless with laughter.
“What’s the matter with you, you blue-mass pill?” Rouke bawled.
“Oh, lordy, Roukey,” Peter howled. “That’s the funniest stunt ever pulled before a camera! It’ll get a laugh from Broadway to the Chinese Yellow Sea. Buck up, and go on with the show!”