J. Poindexter, Colored

by Irvin S. Cobb

"I believe you," he says, "and I'm grateful to you.... Well, Jeff, to put it plainly, I've gone and got myself tangled up in a bad mess."

"Whut way, suh?" I says.

"In two ways," he says; "in business—and in another way. I've been an ass, Jeff—a blind, witless ass. This life here was so different from any I'd ever known—so different and so fascinating—that it just swept me off my feet. I've been drifting along with my eyes shut, having my fling, letting today take care of itself and with no thought of tomorrow. As I look back on it, it strikes me I always have been more or less of a drifter. Down yonder, among our own people, there always was somebody who'd step in once in awhile and check me up. But up here in this big selfish greedy town, among strangers, I've had nobody to advise me or to show me where I was making a fool of myself. And, believe me, I have made a fool of myself. I guess what I need is a guardian—only I doubt whether I'd find the money eventually to pay for his services.... Jeff, if I was free of these—these—well, these entanglements—I tell you right now I'd be willing to quit New York tomorrow and take the next train back home where I belong."

He studies a minute and then he continues to resume:

"Yes," he says, "I'd head for home in the morning—if I could. It has taken a hard jolt to open my eyes but, believe me, they're opened now. The chief trouble is, though, that even with them opened I can't see any way out of the tangle I'm in. Jeff, the big mistake I made at the start was that I tied up with the wrong outfit. I thought I was joining in with a group of typical successful live New Yorkers; I know now how wrong I was. There must be plenty of real people here—people who take life in moderation; people who are fair and kindly and reasonable; people who can find pleasure in simple things and who don't pretend to know all there is to know, or to be what they're not. But I haven't met them; I've been too busy running with the other kind."

Down in my soul I says to myself there's a chance for him to pull out yet if he's beginning to see the brass-work shining through the gold plating which has so dazzled him up heretofores. Yes sir, if he's found out all by himself that New York City ain't exclusively and utterly composed of the Mr. H. C. Raynorses and the Mr. Hilary Bellowses and such, there certainly is hope for him still. All along, up to now, I've been saying to myself that it looks like the only future Mr. Dallas has to look forward to, is his past; but now I rejoices that he's done woke up from his happy trance. But of course I don't let on to him that such is my feelings. I merely says to him, I says:

"I ain't the one to 'spute wid you on 'at p'int, suh. Naw suh, not me! But whut's the reason you can't pull out frum yere, ef you's a-mind to?"

At that he lights in and the language just pours out from him like a flood. There's a lot of rigmarole about business, and some parts of this I cannot seem to rightly get the straight of it into my head, but I'm pretty sure I gets the hang of all the main points clear enough. To begin with, I learns now for the first time that him and Mr. Raynor ain't actually been selling oil down-town; they've been selling oil-stocks, which as near as I can figure it out, an oil-stock is the same kin to oil that a milk-ticket is to milk, only it's like as if the man which sells you the milk-tickets ain't really got no cows rounded up yet but trusts in due time he'll be able to do so. Still, if there is folks scattered about who's willing to take the risk that the milkman will amass some cows somewhere and that the cows won't go dry or die on him or be grabbed by the sheriff and thereby leave the customers with a lot of nice new onusable milk-tickets on their hands why, the way I looks at it, there ain't no reason why their craving for to invest should not be gratified.

It seems, furthermore, that Mr. Raynor ain't actually been selling as many oil stocks in the general market as he has let on. Leastwise, that is what Mr. Dallas suspicions, even if he can't prove it. When first they went into partners together last August, Mr. Dallas tells me he put up a large jag of money for his half-interest. He was content to let Mr. Raynor manage the business and keep the run of the books and all that, seeing as how Mr. Raynor had the experience in such matters and he didn't. Anyhow, he felt most amply satisfied with the gratifying amounts which Mr. Raynor kept handing over to him, saying it all was from the profits. But this very day there's been a show-down at the office growing out of Mr. Raynor having called on him to put up another big chunk of cash for running expenses, and whilst all the figures and all the details ain't been made manifest to Mr. Dallas yet, he's got mighty strong reasons to believe there really wasn't no profits to speak of and that the money he's been drawing out all along was just his own money, which Mr. Raynor let him have it in order to keep him happy and contented whilst he was being sucked in deeper and deeper.

And so now, Mr. Dallas says, that's how it stands. If he goes on and on along the way he seems to be headed it's only a question of time till all his money will be plumb drained from him. He tells me that he'd be willing to pull out now and take his losses and charge 'em up to the expenses of getting a Wall Street education only, he says, he can't. I asks him then what's the reason he can't? He says because when the papers was drawed up—by Mr. Raynor—he obligated himself in such a twistified way that it seems he's bound hard and fast to stick to the bitter end. Of course, he says, he might start a lawsuit and throw the whole thing into the courthouse, but, even so, he's afraid he wouldn't have a leg left to stand on by reason of his having tied himself up so tight in writing; and anyway, he says, before he got through with a lawsuit most doubtless the lawyers would have all the leavings.