He waited and then pressed the bell again—hard. Perhaps it didn’t ring unless you pressed it very hard.
Some one came across the room and the door was opened suddenly. It was a maid, big and fat and as black as the ink he used to put on the advertising roller. She almost filled the doorway. It would be hard to pass her.
“D-do you want any doughnuts?” Chub’s chin quivered now when he began to speak, in spite of himself.
The colored woman eyed him, and took in every detail from the glasses down to the sport hose and oxfords. “What you mean, ring ma do’bell like dat?”
“Why—I thought maybe it was broken,” Chub explained.
“Hit will be broken, if you keep on ringing hit like dat,” she snapped. “What’s the idea of ringing hit dat way?”
Chub remembered his character. “Do you want some doughnuts? Nice, fresh doughnuts, only thirty cents a dozen.”
“No, we don’t.” The door began to shut.
“I use the best of everything in them,” Chub persisted, recalling the Doughnut Woman’s chatter. “You can feed them to the baby.”
“Hain’t got no baby,” was the answer. “I wouldn’t feed ’em to no dog.”