“Gor a’mighty, I knowed it. ’Scuse me, young mistiss, for askin’, but we got to get along together, and I’m goin’ to do evertin’ I can to please you.”
Joe had turned the corner by this time, and her eyes again sought the old darky’s.
“What does he do, this Mr. Grimsby?”
“I don’t know, young mistiss; I think he builds houses. What dey call a architect.”
“And how long has he been here?”
“’Bout two weeks, goin’ on three now.”
A curious expression now crossed her face.
“And is he always as polite as that to everybody he meets for the first time?”
It was Moses’ turn to chuckle now. “I ain’t never seen him with nobody, fur dere ain’t nobody ’round fit fur him to bow and scrape fur till you come, and you ain’t seen de last of him, young mistiss, unless I miss my guess.” And with a prolonged chuckle, Moses seized a chair, backed away with it to the house, and returned again to his duties on the sidewalk.
That the new tenant interested him enormously could be seen as the old negro stood watching his self-imposed supervision. He had been accustomed to all sorts of people since he had held his position, especially the kind that constantly moved in and out of the first floor. There had been inebriates who had been laid up for days at a time, broken-down bank clerks looking for another situation, with only money enough for the first month in advance, ending in final collapse and exit, with most of their furniture in pawn. There had been a mysterious widow, a rather flabby person, whose son was a reporter, and who came in at all hours of the night. And there had been a distinguished lawyer, who moved in for the summer and was going when the heating apparatus broke down on the first cold day.