"Do you know who that child is, sir?" said my uncle, keeping his voice under fine control.
"No," said Mr. Laird, innocent of everything; "no, I never saw him before—do you, Mr. Lundy?"
Uncle threw his newspaper on the floor without a word. Mr. Laird, still all unconscious, meekly stooped and picked it up. "I guess I'd better go and fix my hair before dinner," he said, running his fingers through the startled thatch.
"You'd better wash your hands, sir," said my uncle sternly, oblivious to muttered appeals from both Aunt Agnes and my mother; "I'll tell you who that child is, sir—it's a coon."
"What?" said Mr. Laird, beginning to apprehend.
"It's a coon, sir," my uncle repeated, as sternly as if he had been defining some cub of the jungle; "it's a nigger coon."
"Well?" said Mr. Laird, looking uncle very steadfastly in the eye.
"Well," echoed my uncle, "yes, well." Then he paused, but soon gathered fresh strength. "And I hardly need to tell you, I presume, sir, that it's not our custom to fondle darkey babies—they're supposed to soil white hands, sir," he declared, waxing warm.
Mr. Laird looked innocently at his own. "It hasn't injured mine any, Mr. Lundy," he said simply. "I don't quite understand what caused the—the panic," he concluded, still looking very steadfastly at uncle.
"Well, then, sir, I may as well tell you plainly that such an action as yours would be considered quite—quite improper, to say the least. We don't take familiarities like that with negro children."