They nodded. They were of the same generation, these two old white men and this lone old black man, and between them there was a perfect understanding. That the high honor they had visited upon him meant to their minds one thing and to his mind another thing was understandable too. So they nodded to him.
They came down the steep stairs, the Judge, and the Sergeant abreast in front, the new color bearer two steps behind them, and when they were outside on the street, the Judge fumbled in his pocket a moment, then slipped something shiny into the old negro's harsh, horny palm, and the recipient pulled his old hat off and thanked him, there being dignity in the manner of making the gift and in the manner of receiving it, both.
The Judge and the Sergeant stood watching him as he shuffled away in the darkness, his loose slashed brogans clop-lopping up and down on his sockless feet. Probably they would have found it hard to explain why they stood so, but watch him they did until the old negro's gaunt black shadow merged into the black distance. When he was quite gone from sight, they faced about the other way and soberly and silently, side by side, trudged away, two stoutish, warm, weary old men.
At the corner they parted. The Judge continued alone along Jefferson Street. A trolley car under charter for the Eighth whizzed by him, gay with electric lights. On the rear platform a string band played rag time of the newest and raggedest brand, and between the aisle and on the seats negro men and women were skylarking and yelling to friends and strangers along the sidewalk. The sawing bleat of the agonized bass fiddle cut through the onspeeding clamor, but the guitars could hardly be heard. A little further along, the old Judge had to skirt the curbing to find a clear way past a press of roystering darkies before a moving picture theatre where a horseshoe of incandescent glowed about a sign reading Colored People's Night and a painted canvas banner made enthusiastic mention of the historic accuracies of a film dealing with The Battle of San Juan Hill, on exhibition within. The last of the rented livery rigs passed him, the lathered horse barely able to pluck a jog out of his stiff legs. Good natured smiling faces, brown, black, and yellow showed everywhere from under the brims of straw hats and above the neckbands of rumpled frocks of many colors. The Eighth of August still had its last hours to live and it was living them both high and fast.
When Judge Priest, proceeding steadily onward, came to where Clay Street was brooding, a dark narrow little thoroughfare, in the abundant covert of many trees, the tumult and the shouting were well dimmed in the distance behind him. He set his back to it all and turned into the bye-street, an old tired man with lagging legs, and the shadows swallowed him up.