Mr. Wedgewood brought forth a soft cap and a pair of red slippers. The porter made another effort to escape, his thoughts as black as his face. Again the relentless recall:
"Oh, pawtah, I think we'll unbutton my boots."
He was too weak to murmur "Yassah." He simply fell on one knee and got to work.
There was a witness to his helpless rage—a newcomer, the American counterpart of the Englishman in all that makes travel difficult for the fellow travelers. Ira Lathrop was zealous to resent anything short of perfection, quick and loud of complaint, apparently impossible to please.
In everything else he was the opposite of the Englishman. He was burly, middle-aged, rough, careless in attire, careless of speech—as uncouth and savage as one can well be who is plainly a man of means.
It was not enough that a freeborn Afro-American should be caught kneeling to an Englishman. But when he had escaped this penance, and advanced hospitably to the newcomer, he must be greeted with a snarl.
"Say, are you the porter of this car, or that man's nurse?"
"I can't tell yet. What's yo' numba, please?"
The answer was the ticket. The porter screwed up his eyes to read the pencilled scrawl.
"Numba se'm. Heah she is, boss."