“Come in.”
The darky entered, his back crooked like a folding jack-knife.
“I knowed dat was yo’ ring, Mr. Joe, before it got done tinglin’.” A new—or rather an added joy—had crept again into the old slave’s heart—the joy of serving a white man whom he respected, and who was kind to him.
“You’re wrong, Gargoyles, that was Mr. Atwater’s ring!”
“Well, den you gib his touch.” And again Moses’ back was bent double.
“Wrong again, Moses. That the bell rang at all is entirely owing to the fact that the button was within reach of the distinguished architect’s hand. Had it been six inches farther down the wall, I should have been obliged to tingle it myself.”
“Yas, sah.”
“The distinguished architect, Moses, suffers from an acute form of inertia, Moses, owing to the fact that he was born tired.”
“Yas, sah.”
“And furthermore, Moses, he has so little knowledge of the ordinary civilities of life, that but for your kindly help he would have intrusted this delicately addressed missive, illumined with the Grimsby crest, to a cast-iron box decorating a street corner.”