"Mr. Coleman will be back tomorrow," cried Mrs. Lautier, entering the office a day or so later. "I received a postal from him announcing the fact, so we will not be so lonesome now."
"I am anxious to see what he did in Timberdale. I guess he succeeded in turning it upside down, and covering the whole town with song books."
The next morning, early, he was back. He entered the office and sat around in silence, seeming to be in an introspective mood. Wyeth waited for what he knew would eventually come. It did not as early as it usually did, in fact, he sighed wearily and looked so peculiar, until Wyeth, to break the impatience he was laboring under, presently turned his gaze upon him, and said: "Well, I see you are back...." The other sat up and looked about him suddenly, as though awakened from a trance.
"I suppose you have more money now than you can conveniently use for a while," Wyeth tested. "Made a bunch in Timberdale?"
"Like Hell!" spat the other grumblingly. "Lucky to be back here alive."
"M-m! What did you run up against? A freight train, or the madam?"
"I left the day she arrived," he said in a heavy tone, then added, after a pause: "They've been lynching and driving nigga's out of that town this week, so the convention was a fizzle."
"I suppose you sold out before they got after you? How many song books did you sell?"
"Didn't I tell you the white people was raising Hell, and a-killing and burning Negroes like barbecue out there!" he exclaimed impatiently. "I never sold any song books, but I sold one copy of The Tempest."