At that moment Mammy pressed the button four times. Here was a situation needing a firmer hand than hers. A moment later the boy at Mammy’s Arch was ’phoning up to Mr. Porter’s office.
“Please, sir, I just got four rings from Miss Carruth’s candy Arch, and Mrs. Blairsdale, she say if ever I git that, I must call you up right smart, and ask you please to go there, ’cause Miss Constance ain’t never goin’ to ring four rings unless she need you quick.”
“I’ll be there inside of two minutes, Fred,” and the receiver was snapped back.
“Get away, Lige; are you crazy?” cried Katherine, under her breath, at the same time foolishly making a dash for her pocketbook which lay upon a shelf behind her. As she clasped it Lige caught her wrist in a grip which made her cry aloud in pain. At that moment Mr. Porter entered the Arch. Lige dropped Katherine’s arm and made a dash for Constance’s sanctum, but Mammy had anticipated all this; she had shut and locked the door leading to the side street.
“Mebby yo’ t’ink mos’ eve’ybody as big a fool as yo’ is, Mr. Sniffins, but yo’ see dey’s some wise an’ hones’ ones yit, don’ yo’? Now, sah, yo’ set yo’sef right spang down on dat ar’ cheer t’will I ax yo’ a few ques’ions, wha’ Massa Po’tah gwine hyar, an’ dat po’ li’l fool out yonder gwine ’splain ef we ses-so. Yas, Massa Po’tah, I’se runnin’ t’ings just now, an’, please, sah, keep yo’ eye on dat skunk, fo’ I tells yo’ he ain’t nothin’ in de roun’ worl’ else. Now, Miss Sniffins, yo’ please, ma’am, come on hyar, too, fo’ yo’s needed p’intedly.”
In spite of the serious side of the question, Mr. Porter could not help smiling at Mammy’s generalship. Sniffins stood in the middle of the room, glowering like a trapped animal, and Katherine entered it trembling like a leaf. Notwithstanding her righteous wrath, Mammy could not help pitying the shrinking little figure, and, placing a chair for her, she said kindly:
“Dar, dar, chile, don’ yo’ git so pannicky. Nobody ain’ gwine kill yo’ whilst Massa Po’tah an’ me close by, dough, Gawd knows wha’ dat low-down sumpin’-nurrer lak ter do if he git a chance; I ain’ speculatin’.”
“Mammy, what is the meaning of all this?” interrupted Mr. Porter at this juncture.
“Dat’s jist ’xactly what I don’ sent fo’ yo’ fer ter fin’ out, sah. Dere’s been some sort of debbilmint gwine on hyar fer a right smart while, an’ I’se made it ma b’isness fer ter git scent of it an’ trail it, I has. Dat ar’—dat ar’, my Gawd! I spec’s I gotter call him a man kase dar don’ seem to be no yether name fo’ him, but he’s at de bottom ob it, an’ wha’ fo’ he is, is jist what I means fer ter fin’ out befo’ I lets him outer dis hyar office. Now, sah, Massa Po’tah, yo’ kin hab de bench an’ question de prisoner.”
Porter had seen enough upon entering the Arch to make him realize that Mammy had pretty good grounds for her words and the rage which seemed to almost consume her. Ordinarily Mammy’s face was wonderfully serene, but Mammy was a pure-blooded African negro, born of an African slave captured and brought to the United States when the slave trade was a flourishing and disgraceful source of revenue, and Mammy was born not long after her mother’s capture. In moments of excitement all her racial characteristics dominated to a degree that transformed her. At the present moment there was a fierce conflict between heredity and tradition, and the environment and training of a lifetime.