第28章 Midsummer-Night's Dream(5)

"--what with The Sun making vice so attractive in the morning and the Post making virtue so odious in the evening,it was very hard for a man to be good in New York.""I fear I should subscribe to The Sun,"said John Mayrant.He took his hand from the church-gate railing,and we had turned to stroll down Worship Street when he was unexpectedly addressed.

For some minutes,while John Mayrant and I had been talking,I had grown aware,without taking any definite note of it,that the old custodian of the churchyard,Daddy Ben,had come slowly near us from the distant corner of his demesne,where he had been (to all appearances)engaged in some trifling activity among the flowers--perhaps picking off the faded blossoms.It now came home to me that the venerable negro had really been,in a surreptitious way,watching John Mayrant,and waiting for something--either for the right moment to utter what he now uttered,or his own delayed decision to utter it at all.

"Mas'John!"he called quite softly.His tone was fairly padded with caution,and I saw that in the pause which followed,his eye shot a swift look at the bruise on Mayrant's forehead,and another look,equally swift,at me "Well,Daddy Ben,what is it?"The custodian shunted close to the gate which separated him from us.

"Mas'John,I speck de President he dun'know de cullud people like we knows 'um,else he nebber bin 'pint dat ar boss in de Cussum House,no,sah."After this effort he wiped his forehead and breathed hard.

To my astonishment,the effort brought immediately a stern change over John Mayrant's face;then he answered in the kindest tones,"Thank you,Daddy Ben."This answer interpreted for me the whole thing,which otherwise would have been obscure enough:the old man held it to be an indignity that his young "Mas'John"should,by the President's act,find himself the subordinate of a member of the black race,and he had just now,in his perspiring effort,expressed his sympathy!Why he had chosen this particular moment (after quite obvious debate with himself)I did not see until somewhat later.

He now left us standing at the gate;and it was not for some moments that John Mayrant spoke again,evidently closing,for our two selves,this delicate subject.

"I wish we had not got into that second volume of yours.""That's not progressive."

"I hate progress."

"What's the use?Better grow old gracefully!

"'Qui no pas I'esprif de son age De son age a tout le malheur.'""Well,I'm personally not growing old,just yet.""Neither is the United States."

"Well,I don't know.It's too easy for sick or worthless people to survive nowadays.They are clotting up our square miles very fast.

Philanthropists don't seem to remember that you can beget children a great deal faster than you can educate them;and at this rate I believe universal suffrage will kill us off before our time.""Do not believe it!We are going to find out that universal suffrage is like the appendix--useful at an early stage of the race's evolution but to-day merely a threat to life."He thought this over."But a surgical operation is pretty serious,you know.""It'll be done by absorption.Why,you've begun it yourselves,and so has Massachusetts.The appendix will be removed,black and white--and Ishouldn't much fear surgery.We're not nearly civilized enough yet to have lost the power Of recuperation,and in spite of our express-train speed,I doubt if we shall travel from crudity to rottenness without a pause at maturity.""That is the old,old story,"he said.

"Yes;is there anything new under the sun?"

He was gloomy."Nothing,I suppose."Then the gloom lightened."Nothing new under the sun--except the fashionable families of Newport!"This again brought us from the clouds of speculation down to Worship Street,where we were walking toward South Place.It also unexpectedly furnished me with the means to lead back our talk so gently,without a jolt or a jerk,to my moral and the delicate topic of matrimony from which he had dodged away,that he never awoke to what was coming until it had come.He began pointing out,as we passed them,certain houses which were now,or had at some period been,the dwellings of his many relatives:"My cousin Julia So-and-so lives there,"he would say;or,"My great-uncle,known as Regent Tom,owned that before the War";and once,"The Rev.Joseph Priedieu,my great-grandfather,built that house to marry his fifth wife in,but the grave claimed him first."So I asked him a riddle."What is the difference between Kings Port and Newport?"This he,of course,gave up.