"Fifty-five thousand four hundred and ten."
"Right in the city?"
"Well, in the trolley-car territory."
"But in the city itself?" my companion insisted.
The secretary was fairly cornered. "The 1910 census," he said, with a smile, "gave us about forty thousand."
"Thirty-eight thousand one hundred and thirty-six," corrected my companion. He had not spent hours with the guidebook for nothing.
When, presently, we got into the automobile, I gave another feeble chirp about the fair, but the secretary was adamant, so we yielded temporarily, and were whirled about the city.
Montgomery is a charming old town, not only by reason of the definite things it has to show, but also because of a general rich suggestion of old southern life.
The day, by a fortunate chance, was Saturday, and everywhere we went we encountered negroes driving in from the country to market, in their rickety old wagons. On some wagons there would be four or five men and women, and here and there one would be playing a musical instrument and they would all be singing, while the creaking of the wagon came in with an orchestral quality which seemed grotesquely suitable. The mules, too, looked as though they ought to creak, and an inspection of the harness suggested that it was held together, not so much by the string and wire with which it was mended, as by the fingers of that especial Providence which watches over all kinds of absurd repairs made by negroes, and makes them hold for negroes, where they would not hold for white men.