CHAPTER TWELVE
A Jew; a Gentile; a Murder—and Some More
"Look here, kid, they tell me they had you," jollied Spoon, when he saw Wyeth that evening at Hatfield's ice cream parlor.
"You're breaking into print," laughed "Bubber" Hatfield, unfolding a green sheet, The Searchlight, a sensational four-page afternoon affair, which made a specialty of court news, and which most colored people read. They are fond of such news.
Frowning, while all those standing about laughed, he took the sheet and read:
NEGRO FROM THE NORTH WAS SURPRISED
In a few colored paragraphs, it described his appearance before the recorder. And in conclusion, it had these trite words, purported to have been said by him: "Dey don' have dem kind of laws up norf."
The following Saturday, he dropped into Tompkins' and was introduced to a man who impressed him considerably. At the first glance, he could see he was not a southerner. Before he made his acquaintance, he overheard him discussing books with Tompkins, and when he heard him speaking of the latest works of fiction, he opened his ears. To hear a Negro in Attalia discussing novels, the late ones, was something new to him; in fact, he had heard the most of those he met discuss but one, a salacious one from the pen of a noted English author and playwright, and which cannot be had at the libraries, but is, nevertheless, a masterpiece.
He grasped his hand cordially, and they at once entered into conversation. His name was Edwards. "This gentleman," explained Tompkins, "is the author of the book you and your friend were looking at this afternoon." Edwards' eyebrows went up with considerable pleasure, as he cried in a voice that was, to say the least, cordial: