{"id":120,"date":"2015-07-08T18:06:38","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T18:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/americanlit2x22x1\/?post_type=chapter&p=120"},"modified":"2015-07-08T18:06:38","modified_gmt":"2015-07-08T18:06:38","slug":"dice-brassknuckles-guitar","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/vccs-eng242-17fa\/chapter\/dice-brassknuckles-guitar\/","title":{"raw":"Dice, Brassknuckles & Guitar","rendered":"Dice, Brassknuckles & Guitar"},"content":{"raw":"

by\u00a0F. Scott Fitzgerald<\/em><\/p>\r\n

originally published in <\/em>International (May 1923)<\/em><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nParts of New Jersey, as you know, are under water, and other parts\r\nare under continual surveillance by the authorities. But here and\r\nthere lie patches of garden country dotted with old-fashioned frame\r\nmansions, which have wide shady porches and a red swing on the\r\nlawn. And perhaps, on the widest and shadiest of the porches there\r\nis even a hammock left over from the hammock days, stirring gently\r\nin a mid-Victorian wind.\r\n\r\nWhen tourists come to such last-century landmarks they stop their\r\ncars and gaze for a while and then mutter: \"Well, thank God this\r\nage is joined on to something\" or else they say: \"Well, of course,\r\nthat house is mostly halls and has a thousand rats and one\r\nbathroom, but there's an atmosphere about it--\"\r\n\r\nThe tourist doesn't stay long. He drives on to his Elizabethan\r\nvilla of pressed cardboard or his early Norman meat-market or his\r\nmedieval Italian pigeon-coop--because this is the twentieth century\r\nand Victorian houses are as unfashionable as the works of Mrs.\r\nHumphry Ward.\r\n\r\nHe can't see the hammock from the road--but sometimes there's a\r\ngirl in the hammock. There was this afternoon. She was asleep in\r\nit and apparently unaware of the esthetic horrors which surrounded\r\nher, the stone statue of Diana, for instance, which grinned\r\nidiotically under the sunlight on the lawn.\r\n\r\nThere was something enormously yellow about the whole scene--there\r\nwas this sunlight, for instance, that was yellow, and the hammock\r\nwas of the particularly hideous yellow peculiar to hammocks, and\r\nthe girl's yellow hair was spread out upon the hammock in a sort of\r\ninvidious comparison.\r\n\r\nShe slept with her lips closed and her hands clasped behind her\r\nhead, as it is proper for young girls to sleep. Her breast rose\r\nand fell slightly with no more emphasis than the sway of the\r\nhammock's fringe.\r\n\r\nHer name, Amanthis, was as old-fashioned as the house she lived in.\r\nI regret to say that her mid-Victorian connections ceased abruptly\r\nat this point.\r\n\r\nNow if this were a moving picture (as, of course, I hope it will\r\nsome day be) I would take as many thousand feet of her as I was\r\nallowed--then I would move the camera up close and show the yellow\r\ndown on the back of her neck where her hair stopped and the warm\r\ncolor of her cheeks and arms, because I like to think of her\r\nsleeping there, as you yourself might have slept, back in your\r\nyoung days. Then I would hire a man named Israel Glucose to write\r\nsome idiotic line of transition, and switch thereby to another\r\nscene that was taking place at no particular spot far down the\r\nroad.\r\n\r\nIn a moving automobile sat a southern gentleman accompanied by his\r\nbody-servant. He was on his way, after a fashion, to New York but\r\nhe was somewhat hampered by the fact that the upper and lower\r\nportions of his automobile were no longer in exact juxtaposition.\r\nIn fact from time to time the two riders would dismount, shove the\r\nbody on to the chassis, corner to corner, and then continue onward,\r\nvibrating slightly in involuntary unison with the motor.\r\n\r\nExcept that it had no door in back the car might have been built\r\nearly in the mechanical age. It was covered with the mud of eight\r\nstates and adorned in front by an enormous but defunct motometer\r\nand behind by a mangy pennant bearing the legend \"Tarleton, Ga.\"\r\nIn the dim past someone had begun to paint the hood yellow but\r\nunfortunately had been called away when but half through the task.\r\n\r\nAs the gentleman and his body-servant were passing the house where\r\nAmanthis lay beautifully asleep in the hammock, something happened--\r\nthe body fell off the car. My only apology for stating this so\r\nsuddenly is that it happened very suddenly indeed. When the noise\r\nhad died down and the dust had drifted away master and man arose\r\nand inspected the two halves.\r\n\r\n\"Look-a-there,\" said the gentleman in disgust, \"the doggone thing\r\ngot all separated that time.\"\r\n\r\n\"She bust in two,\" agreed the body-servant.\r\n\r\n\"Hugo,\" said the gentleman, after some consideration, \"we got to\r\nget a hammer an' nails an' TACK it on.\"\r\n\r\nThey glanced up at the Victorian house. On all sides faintly\r\nirregular fields stretched away to a faintly irregular unpopulated\r\nhorizon. There was no choice, so the black Hugo opened the gate\r\nand followed his master up a gravel walk, casting only the blas\u00e9\r\nglances of a confirmed traveler at the red swing and the stone\r\nstatue of Diana which turned on them a storm-crazed stare.\r\n\r\nAt the exact moment when they reached the porch Amanthis awoke, sat\r\nup suddenly and looked them over.\r\n\r\nThe gentleman was young, perhaps twenty-four, and his name was Jim\r\nPowell. He was dressed in a tight and dusty readymade suit which\r\nwas evidently expected to take flight at a moment's notice, for it\r\nwas secured to his body by a line of six preposterous buttons.\r\n\r\nThere were supernumerary buttons upon the coat-sleeves also and\r\nAmanthis could not resist a glance to determine whether or not more\r\nbuttons ran up the side of his trouser leg. But the trouser\r\nbottoms were distinguished only by their shape, which was that of a\r\nbell. His vest was cut low, barely restraining an amazing necktie\r\nfrom fluttering in the wind.\r\n\r\nHe bowed formally, dusting his knees with a thatched straw hat.\r\nSimultaneously he smiled, half shutting his faded blue eyes and\r\ndisplaying white and beautifully symmetrical teeth.\r\n\r\n\"Good evenin',\" he said in abandoned Georgian. \"My automobile has\r\nmet with an accident out yonder by your gate. I wondered if it\r\nwouldn't be too much to ask you if I could have the use of a hammer\r\nand some tacks--nails, for a little while.\"\r\n\r\nAmanthis laughed. For a moment she laughed uncontrollably. Mr.\r\nJim Powell laughed, politely and appreciatively, with her. His\r\nbody-servant, deep in the throes of colored adolescence, alone\r\npreserved a dignified gravity.\r\n\r\n\"I better introduce who I am, maybe,\" said the visitor. \"My name's\r\nPowell. I'm a resident of Tarleton, Georgia. This here nigger's\r\nmy boy Hugo.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your SON!\" The girl stared from one to the other in wild\r\nfascination.\r\n\r\n\"No, he's my body-servant, I guess you'd call it. We call a nigger\r\na boy down yonder.\"\r\n\r\nAt this reference to the finer customs of his native soil the boy\r\nHugo put his hands behind his back and looked darkly and\r\nsuperciliously down the lawn.\r\n\r\n\"Yas'm,\" he muttered, \"I'm a body-servant.\"\r\n\r\n\"Where you going in your automobile,\" demanded Amanthis.\r\n\r\n\"Goin' north for the summer.\"\r\n\r\n\"Where to?\"\r\n\r\nThe tourist waved his hand with a careless gesture as if to\r\nindicate the Adirondacks, the Thousand Islands, Newport--but he\r\nsaid:\r\n\r\n\"We're tryin' New York.\"\r\n\r\n\"Have you ever been there before?\"\r\n\r\n\"Never have. But I been to Atlanta lots of times. An' we passed\r\nthrough all kinds of cities this trip. Man!\"\r\n\r\nHe whistled to express the enormous spectacularity of his recent\r\ntravels.\r\n\r\n\"Listen,\" said Amanthis intently, \"you better have something to\r\neat. Tell your--your body-servant to go 'round in back and ask the\r\ncook to send us out some sandwiches and lemonade. Or maybe you\r\ndon't drink lemonade--very few people do any more.\"\r\n\r\nMr. Powell by a circular motion of his finger sped Hugo on the\r\ndesignated mission. Then he seated himself gingerly in a rocking-\r\nchair and began revolving his thatched straw hat rapidly in his\r\nhands.\r\n\r\n\"You cer'nly are mighty kind,\" he told her. \"An' if I wanted\r\nanything stronger than lemonade I got a bottle of good old corn out\r\nin the car. I brought it along because I thought maybe I wouldn't\r\nbe able to drink the whisky they got up here.\"\r\n\r\n\"Listen,\" she said, \"my name's Powell too. Amanthis Powell.\"\r\n\r\n\"Say, is that right?\" He laughed ecstatically. \"Maybe we're kin\r\nto each other. I come from mighty good people,\" he went on. \"Pore\r\nthough. I got some money because my aunt she was using it to keep\r\nher in a sanitarium and she died.\" He paused, presumably out of\r\nrespect to his late aunt. Then he concluded with brisk\r\nnonchalance, \"I ain't touched the principal but I got a lot of the\r\nincome all at once so I thought I'd come north for the summer.\"\r\n\r\nAt this point Hugo reappeared on the veranda steps and became\r\naudible.\r\n\r\n\"White lady back there she asked me don't I want eat some too.\r\nWhat I tell her?\"\r\n\r\n\"You tell her yes mamm if she be so kind,\" directed his master.\r\nAnd as Hugo retired he confided to Amanthis: \"That boy's got no\r\nsense at all. He don't want to do nothing without I tell him he\r\ncan. I brought him up,\" he added, not without pride.\r\n\r\nWhen the sandwiches arrived Mr. Powell stood up. He was\r\nunaccustomed to white servants and obviously expected an\r\nintroduction.\r\n\r\n\"Are you a married lady?\" he inquired of Amanthis, when the servant\r\nwas gone.\r\n\r\n\"No,\" she answered, and added from the security of eighteen, \"I'm\r\nan old maid.\"\r\n\r\nAgain he laughed politely.\r\n\r\n\"You mean you're a society girl.\"\r\n\r\nShe shook her head. Mr. Powell noted with embarrassed enthusiasm\r\nthe particular yellowness of her yellow hair.\r\n\r\n\"Does this old place look like it?\" she said cheerfully. \"No, you\r\nperceive in me a daughter of the countryside. Color--one hundred\r\npercent spontaneous--in the daytime anyhow. Suitors--promising\r\nyoung barbers from the neighboring village with somebody's late\r\nhair still clinging to their coat-sleeves.\"\r\n\r\n\"Your daddy oughtn't to let you go with a country barber,\" said the\r\ntourist disapprovingly. He considered--\"You ought to be a New York\r\nsociety girl.\"\r\n\r\n\"No.\" Amanthis shook her head sadly. \"I'm too good-looking. To\r\nbe a New York society girl you have to have a long nose and\r\nprojecting teeth and dress like the actresses did three years ago.\"\r\n\r\nJim began to tap his foot rhythmically on the porch and in a moment\r\nAmanthis discovered that she was unconsciously doing the same\r\nthing.\r\n\r\n\"Stop!\" she commanded, \"Don't make me do that.\"\r\n\r\nHe looked down at his foot.\r\n\r\n\"Excuse me,\" he said humbly. \"I don't know--it's just something I\r\ndo.\"\r\n\r\nThis intense discussion was now interrupted by Hugo who appeared on\r\nthe steps bearing a hammer and a handful of nails.\r\n\r\nMr. Powell arose unwillingly and looked at his watch.\r\n\r\n\"We got to go, daggone it,\" he said, frowning heavily. \"See here.\r\nWouldn't you LIKE to be a New York society girl and go to those\r\ndances an' all, like you read about, where they throw gold pieces\r\naway?\"\r\n\r\nShe looked at him with a curious expression.\r\n\r\n\"Don't your folks know some society people?\" he went on.\r\n\r\n\"All I've got's my daddy--and, you see, he's a judge.\"\r\n\r\n\"That's too bad,\" he agreed.\r\n\r\nShe got herself by some means from the hammock and they went down\r\ntoward the road, side by side.\r\n\r\n\"Well, I'll keep my eyes open for you and let you know,\" he\r\npersisted. \"A pretty girl like you ought to go around in society.\r\nWe may be kin to each other, you see, and us Powells ought to stick\r\ntogether.\"\r\n\r\n\"What are you going to do in New York?\"\r\n\r\nThey were now almost at the gate and the tourist pointed to the two\r\ndepressing sectors of his automobile.\r\n\r\n\"I'm goin' to drive a taxi. This one right here. Only it's got so\r\nit busts in two all the time.\"\r\n\r\n\"You're going to drive THAT in New York?\"\r\n\r\nJim looked at her uncertainly. Such a pretty girl should certainly\r\ncontrol the habit of shaking all over upon no provocation at all.\r\n\r\n\"Yes mamm,\" he said with dignity.\r\n\r\nAmanthis watched while they placed the upper half of the car upon\r\nthe lower half and nailed it severely into place. Then Mr. Powell\r\ntook the wheel and his body-servant climbed in beside him.\r\n\r\n\"I'm cer'nly very much obliged to you indeed for your hospitality.\r\nConvey my respects to your father.\"\r\n\r\n\"I will,\" she assured him. \"Come back and see me, if you don't\r\nmind barbers in the room.\"\r\n\r\nHe dismissed this unpleasant thought with a gesture.\r\n\r\n\"Your company would always be charming.\" He put the car into gear\r\nas though to drown out the temerity of his parting speech. \"You're\r\nthe prettiest girl I've seen up north--by far.\"\r\n\r\nThen with a groan and a rattle Mr. Powell of southern Georgia with\r\nhis own car and his own body-servant and his own ambitions and his\r\nown private cloud of dust continued on north for the summer.\r\n\r\nShe thought she would never see him again. She lay in her hammock,\r\nslim and beautiful, opened her left eye slightly to see June come\r\nin and then closed it and retired contentedly back into her dreams.\r\n\r\nBut one day when the midsummer vines had climbed the precarious\r\nsides of the red swing in the lawn, Mr. Jim Powell of Tarleton,\r\nGeorgia, came vibrating back into her life. They sat on the wide\r\nporch as before.\r\n\r\n\"I've got a great scheme,\" he told her.\r\n\r\n\"Did you drive your taxi like you said?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes mamm, but the business was right bad. I waited around in\r\nfront of all those hotels and theaters an' nobody ever got in.\"\r\n\r\n\"NObody?\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, one night there was some drunk fellas they got in, only just\r\nas I was gettin' started my automobile came apart. And another\r\nnight it was rainin' and there wasn't no other taxis and a lady got\r\nin because she said she had to go a long ways. But before we got\r\nthere she made me stop and she got out. She seemed kinda mad and\r\nshe went walkin' off in the rain. Mighty proud lot of people they\r\ngot up in New York.\"\r\n\r\n\"And so you're going home?\" asked Amanthis sympathetically.\r\n\r\n\"No MAMM. I got an idea.\" His blue eyes grew narrow. \"Has that\r\nbarber been around here--with hair on his sleeves?\"\r\n\r\n\"No. He's--he's gone away.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, then, first thing is I want to leave this car of mine here\r\nwith you, if that's all right. It ain't the right color for a\r\ntaxi. To pay for its keep I'd like to have you drive it just as\r\nmuch as you want. 'Long as you got a hammer an' nails with you\r\nthere ain't much bad that can happen--\"\r\n\r\n\"I'll take care of it,\" interrupted Amanthis, \"but where are YOU\r\ngoing?\"\r\n\r\n\"Southampton. It's about the most aristocratic watering trough--\r\nwatering-place there is around here, so that's where I'm going.\"\r\n\r\nShe sat up in amazement.\r\n\r\n\"What are you going to do there?\"\r\n\r\n\"Listen.\" He leaned toward her confidentially. \"Were you serious\r\nabout wanting to be a New York society girl?\"\r\n\r\n\"Deadly serious.\"\r\n\r\n\"That's all I wanted to know,\" he said inscrutably. \"You just wait\r\nhere on this porch a couple of weeks and--and sleep. And if any\r\nbarbers come to see you with hair on their sleeves you tell 'em\r\nyou're too sleepy to see 'em.\"\r\n\r\n\"What then?\"\r\n\r\n\"Then you'll hear from me. Just tell your old daddy he can do all\r\nthe judging he wants but you're goin' to do some DANCIN'. Mamm,\"\r\nhe continued decisively, \"you talk about society! Before one month\r\nI'm goin' to have you in more society than you ever saw.\"\r\n\r\nFurther than this he would say nothing. His manner conveyed that\r\nshe was going to be suspended over a perfect pool of gaiety and\r\nviolently immersed, to an accompaniment of: \"Is it gay enough for\r\nyou, mamm? Shall I let in a little more excitement, mamm?\"\r\n\r\n\"Well,\" answered Amanthis, lazily considering, \"there are few\r\nthings for which I'd forego the luxury of sleeping through July and\r\nAugust--but if you'll write me a letter I'll--I'll run up to\r\nSouthampton.\"\r\n\r\nJim snapped his fingers ecstatically.\r\n\r\n\"More society,\" he assured her with all the confidence at his\r\ncommand, \"than anybody ever saw.\"\r\n\r\nThree days later a young man wearing a straw hat that might have\r\nbeen cut from the thatched roof of an English cottage rang the\r\ndoorbell of the enormous and astounding Madison Harlan house at\r\nSouthampton. He asked the butler if there were any people in the\r\nhouse between the ages of sixteen and twenty. He was informed that\r\nMiss Genevieve Harlan and Mr. Ronald Harlan answered that\r\ndescription and thereupon he handed in a most peculiar card and\r\nrequested in fetching Georgian that it be brought to their\r\nattention.\r\n\r\nAs a result he was closeted for almost an hour with Mr. Ronald\r\nHarlan (who was a student at the Hillkiss School) and Miss\r\nGenevieve Harlan (who was not uncelebrated at Southampton dances).\r\nWhen he left he bore a short note in Miss Harlan's handwriting\r\nwhich he presented together with his peculiar card at the next\r\nlarge estate. It happened to be that of the Clifton Garneaus.\r\nHere, as if by magic, the same audience was granted him.\r\n\r\nHe went on--it was a hot day, and men who could not afford to do so\r\nwere carrying their coats on the public highway, but Jim, a native\r\nof southernmost Georgia, was as fresh and cool at the last house as\r\nat the first. He visited ten houses that day. Anyone following\r\nhim in his course might have taken him to be some curiously gifted\r\nbook-agent with a much sought-after volume as his stock in trade.\r\n\r\nThere was something in his unexpected demand for the adolescent\r\nmembers of the family which made hardened butlers lose their\r\ncritical acumen. As he left each house a close observer might have\r\nseen that fascinated eyes followed him to the door and excited\r\nvoices whispered something which hinted at a future meeting.\r\n\r\nThe second day he visited twelve houses. Southampton has grown\r\nenormously--he might have kept on his round for a week and never\r\nseen the same butler twice--but it was only the palatial, the\r\namazing houses which intrigued him.\r\n\r\nOn the third day he did a thing that many people have been told to\r\ndo and few have done--he hired a hall. Perhaps the sixteen-to-\r\ntwenty-year-old people in the enormous houses had told him to. The\r\nhall he hired had once been \"Mr. Snorkey's Private Gymnasium for\r\nGentlemen.\" It was situated over a garage on the south edge of\r\nSouthampton and in the days of its prosperity had been, I regret to\r\nsay, a place where gentlemen could, under Mr. Snorkey's direction,\r\nwork off the effects of the night before. It was now abandoned--\r\nMr. Snorkey had given up and gone away and died.\r\n\r\nWe will now skip three weeks during which time we may assume that\r\nthe project which had to do with hiring a hall and visiting the two\r\ndozen largest houses in Southampton got under way.\r\n\r\nThe day to which we will skip was the July day on which Mr. James\r\nPowell sent a wire to Miss Amanthis Powell saying that if she still\r\naspired to the gaiety of the highest society she should set out for\r\nSouthampton by the earliest possible train. He himself would meet\r\nher at the station.\r\n\r\nJim was no longer a man of leisure, so when she failed to arrive at\r\nthe time her wire had promised he grew restless. He supposed she\r\nwas coming on a later train, turned to go back to his--his project--\r\nand met her entering the station from the street side.\r\n\r\n\"Why, how did you--\"\r\n\r\n\"Well,\" said Amanthis, \"I arrived this morning instead, and I\r\ndidn't want to bother you so I found a respectable, not to say\r\ndull, boarding-house on the Ocean Road.\"\r\n\r\nShe was quite different from the indolent Amanthis of the porch\r\nhammock, he thought. She wore a suit of robins' egg blue and a\r\nrakish young hat with a curling feather--she was attired not unlike\r\nthose young ladies between sixteen and twenty who of late were\r\nabsorbing his attention. Yes, she would do very well.\r\n\r\nHe bowed her profoundly into a taxicab and got in beside her.\r\n\r\n\"Isn't it about time you told me your scheme?\" she suggested.\r\n\r\n\"Well, it's about these society girls up here.\" He waved his hand\r\nairily. \"I know 'em all.\"\r\n\r\n\"Where are they?\"\r\n\r\n\"Right now they're with Hugo. You remember--that's my body-\r\nservant.\"\r\n\r\n\"With Hugo!\" Her eyes widened. \"Why? What's it all about?\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, I got--I got sort of a school, I guess you'd call it.\"\r\n\r\n\"A school?\"\r\n\r\n\"It's a sort of Academy. And I'm the head of it. I invented it.\"\r\n\r\nHe flipped a card from his case as though he were shaking down a\r\nthermometer.\r\n\r\n\"Look.\"\r\n\r\nShe took the card. In large lettering it bore the legend\r\n

JAMES POWELL; J.M.\r\n\"Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar\"<\/p>\r\nShe stared in amazement.\r\n\r\n\"Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar?\" she repeated in awe.\r\n\r\n\"Yes mamm.\"\r\n\r\n\"What does it mean? What--do you SELL 'em?\"\r\n\r\n\"No mamm, I teach 'em. It's a profession.\"\r\n\r\n\"Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar? What's the J. M.?\"\r\n\r\n\"That stands for Jazz Master.\"\r\n\r\n\"But what is it? What's it about?\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, you see, it's like this. One night when I was in New York I\r\ngot talkin' to a young fella who was drunk. He was one of my\r\nfares. And he'd taken some society girl somewhere and lost her.\"\r\n\r\n\"LOST her?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes mamm. He forgot her, I guess. And he was right worried.\r\nWell, I got to thinkin' that these girls nowadays--these society\r\ngirls--they lead a sort of dangerous life and my course of study\r\noffers a means of protection against these dangers.\"\r\n\r\n\"You teach 'em to use brassknuckles?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes mamm, if necessary. Look here, you take a girl and she goes\r\ninto some caf\u00e9 where she's got no business to go. Well then, her\r\nescort he gets a little too much to drink an' he goes to sleep an'\r\nthen some other fella comes up and says 'Hello, sweet mamma' or\r\nwhatever one of those mashers says up here. What does she do? She\r\ncan't scream, on account of no real lady'll scream nowadays--no--\r\nShe just reaches down in her pocket and slips her fingers into a\r\npair of Powell's defensive brassknuckles, d\u00e9butante's size,\r\nexecutes what I call the Society Hook, and Wham! that big fella's\r\non his way to the cellar.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well--what--what's the guitar for?\" whispered the awed Amanthis.\r\n\"Do they have to knock somebody over with the guitar?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, MAMM!\" exclaimed Jim in horror. \"No mamm. In my course no\r\nlady would be taught to raise a guitar against anybody. I teach\r\n'em to play. Shucks! you ought to hear 'em. Why, when I've given\r\n'em two lessons you'd think some of 'em was colored.\"\r\n\r\n\"And the dice?\"\r\n\r\n\"Dice? I'm related to a dice. My grandfather was a dice. I teach\r\n'em how to make those dice perform. I protect pocketbook as well\r\nas person.\"\r\n\r\n\"Did you--Have you got any pupils?\"\r\n\r\n\"Mamm I got all the really nice, rich people in the place. What I\r\ntold you ain't all. I teach lots of things. I teach 'em the\r\njellyroll--and the Mississippi Sunrise. Why, there was one girl\r\nshe came to me and said she wanted to learn to snap her fingers. I\r\nmean REALLY snap 'em--like they do. She said she never could snap\r\nher fingers since she was little. I gave her two lessons and now\r\nWham! Her daddy says he's goin' to leave home.\"\r\n\r\n\"When do you have it?\" demanded the weak and shaken Amanthis.\r\n\r\n\"Three times a week. We're goin' there right now.\"\r\n\r\n\"And where do I fit in?\"\r\n\r\n\"Well, you'll just be one of the pupils. I got it fixed up that\r\nyou come from very high-tone people down in New Jersey. I didn't\r\ntell 'em your daddy was a judge--I told 'em he was the man that had\r\nthe patent on lump sugar.\"\r\n\r\nShe gasped.\r\n\r\n\"So all you got to do,\" he went on, \"is to pretend you never saw no\r\nbarber.\"\r\n\r\nThey were now at the south end of the village and Amanthis saw a\r\nrow of cars parked in front of a two-story building. The cars were\r\nall low, long, rakish and of a brilliant hue. They were the sort\r\nof car that is manufactured to solve the millionaire's problem on\r\nhis son's eighteenth birthday.\r\n\r\nThen Amanthis was ascending a narrow stairs to the second story.\r\nHere, painted on a door from which came the sounds of music and\r\nlaughter were the words:\r\n

JAMES POWELL; J. M.\r\n\"Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar\"\r\nMon.--Wed.--Fri.\r\nHours 3-5 P.M.<\/p>\r\n\"Now if you'll just step this way--\" said the Principal, pushing\r\nopen the door.\r\n\r\nAmanthis found herself in a long, bright room, populated with girls\r\nand men of about her own age. The scene presented itself to her at\r\nfirst as a sort of animated afternoon tea but after a moment she\r\nbegan to see, here and there, a motive and a pattern to the\r\nproceedings.\r\n\r\nThe students were scattered into groups, sitting, kneeling,\r\nstanding, but all rapaciously intent on the subjects which\r\nengrossed them. From six young ladies gathered in a ring around\r\nsome indistinguishable objects came a medley of cries and\r\nexclamations--plaintive, pleading, supplicating, exhorting,\r\nimploring and lamenting--their voices serving as tenor to an\r\nundertone of mysterious clatters.\r\n\r\nNext to this group, four young men were surrounding an adolescent\r\nblack, who proved to be none other than Mr. Powell's late body-\r\nservant. The young men were roaring at Hugo apparently unrelated\r\nphrases, expressing a wide gamut of emotion. Now their voices rose\r\nto a sort of clamor, now they spoke softly and gently, with mellow\r\nimplication. Every little while Hugo would answer them with words\r\nof approbation, correction or disapproval.\r\n\r\n\"What are they doing?\" whispered Amanthis to Jim.\r\n\r\n\"That there's a course in southern accent. Lot of young men up\r\nhere want to learn southern accent--so we teach it--Georgia,\r\nFlorida, Alabama, Eastern Shore, Ole Virginian. Some of 'em even\r\nwant straight nigger--for song purposes.\"\r\n\r\nThey walked around among the groups. Some girls with metal\r\nknuckles were furiously insulting two punching bags on each of\r\nwhich was painted the leering, winking face of a \"masher.\" A mixed\r\ngroup, led by a banjo tom-tom, were rolling harmonic syllables from\r\ntheir guitars. There were couples dancing flat-footed in the\r\ncorner to a phonograph record made by Rastus Muldoon's Savannah\r\nBand; there were couples stalking a slow Chicago with a Memphis\r\nSideswoop solemnly around the room.\r\n\r\n\"Are there any rules?\" asked Amanthis.\r\n\r\nJim considered.\r\n\r\n\"Well,\" he answered finally, \"they can't smoke unless they're over\r\nsixteen, and the boys have got to shoot square dice and I don't let\r\n'em bring liquor into the Academy.\"\r\n\r\n\"I see.\"\r\n\r\n\"And now, Miss Powell, if you're ready I'll ask you to take off\r\nyour hat and go over and join Miss Genevieve Harlan at that\r\npunching bag in the corner.\" He raised his voice. \"Hugo,\" he\r\ncalled, \"there's a new student here. Equip her with a pair of\r\nPowell's Defensive Brassknuckles--d\u00e9butante size.\"\r\n\r\nI regret to say that I never saw Jim Powell's famous Jazz School in\r\naction nor followed his personally conducted tours into the\r\nmysteries of Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar. So I can give you\r\nonly such details as were later reported to me by one of his\r\nadmiring pupils. During all the discussion of it afterwards no one\r\never denied that it was an enormous success, and no pupil ever\r\nregretted having received its degree--Bachelor of Jazz.\r\n\r\nThe parents innocently assumed that it was a sort of musical and\r\ndancing academy, but its real curriculum was transmitted from Santa\r\nBarbara to Biddeford Pool by that underground associated press\r\nwhich links up the so-called younger generation. Invitations to\r\nvisit Southampton were at a premium--and Southampton generally is\r\nalmost as dull for young people as Newport.\r\n\r\nThe Academy branched out with a small but well-groomed Jazz\r\nOrchestra.\r\n\r\n\"If I could keep it dark,\" Jim confided to Amanthis, \"I'd have up\r\nRastus Muldoon's Band from Savannah. That's the band I've always\r\nwanted to lead.\"\r\n\r\nHe was making money. His charges were not exorbitant--as a rule\r\nhis pupils were not particularly flush--but he moved from his\r\nboarding-house to the Casino Hotel where he took a suite and had\r\nHugo serve him his breakfast in bed.\r\n\r\nThe establishing of Amanthis as a member of Southampton's younger\r\nset was easier than he had expected. Within a week she was known\r\nto everyone in the school by her first name. Miss Genevieve Harlan\r\ntook such a fancy to her that she was invited to a sub-deb dance at\r\nthe Harlan house--and evidently acquitted herself with tact, for\r\nthereafter she was invited to almost every such entertainment in\r\nSouthampton.\r\n\r\nJim saw less of her than he would have liked. Not that her manner\r\ntoward him changed--she walked with him often in the mornings, she\r\nwas always willing to listen to his plans--but after she was taken\r\nup by the fashionable her evenings seemed to be monopolized.\r\nSeveral times Jim arrived at her boarding-house to find her out of\r\nbreath, as if she had just come in at a run, presumably from some\r\nfestivity in which he had no share.\r\n\r\nSo as the summer waned he found that one thing was lacking to\r\ncomplete the triumph of his enterprise. Despite the hospitality\r\nshown to Amanthis, the doors of Southampton were closed to him.\r\nPolite to, or rather, fascinated by him as his pupils were from\r\nthree to five, after that hour they moved in another world.\r\n\r\nHis was the position of a golf professional who, though he may\r\nfraternize, and even command, on the links, loses his privileges\r\nwith the sun-down. He may look in the club window but he cannot\r\ndance. And, likewise, it was not given to Jim to see his teachings\r\nput into effect. He could hear the gossip of the morning after--\r\nthat was all.\r\n\r\nBut while the golf professional, being English, holds himself\r\nproudly below his patrons, Jim Powell, who \"came from a right good\r\nfamily down there--pore though,\" lay awake many nights in his hotel\r\nbed and heard the music drifting into his window from the Katzbys'\r\nhouse or the Beach Club, and turned over restlessly and wondered\r\nwhat was the matter. In the early days of his success he had\r\nbought himself a dress-suit, thinking that he would soon have a\r\nchance to wear it--but it still lay untouched in the box in which\r\nit had come from the tailor's.\r\n\r\nPerhaps, he thought, there was some real gap which separated him\r\nfrom the rest. It worried him. One boy in particular, Martin Van\r\nVleck, son of Van Vleck the ash-can King, made him conscious of the\r\ngap. Van Vleck was twenty-one, a tutoring-school product who still\r\nhoped to enter Yale. Several times Jim had heard him make remarks\r\nnot intended for Jim's ear--once in regard to the suit with\r\nmultiple buttons, again in reference to Jim's long, pointed shoes.\r\nJim had passed these over.\r\n\r\nHe knew that Van Vleck was attending the school chiefly to\r\nmonopolize the time of little Martha Katzby, who was just sixteen\r\nand too young to have attention of a boy of twenty-one--especially\r\nthe attention of Van Vleck, who was so spiritually exhausted by his\r\neducational failures that he drew on the rather exhaustible\r\ninnocence of sixteen.\r\n\r\nIt was late in September, two days before the Harlan dance which\r\nwas to be the last and biggest of the season for this younger\r\ncrowd. Jim, as usual, was not invited. He had hoped that he would\r\nbe. The two young Harlans, Ronald and Genevieve, had been his\r\nfirst patrons when he arrived at Southampton--and it was Genevieve\r\nwho had taken such a fancy to Amanthis. To have been at their\r\ndance--the most magnificent dance of all--would have crowned and\r\njustified the success of the waning summer.\r\n\r\nHis class, gathering for the afternoon, was loudly anticipating the\r\nnext day's revel with no more thought of him than if he had been\r\nthe family butler. Hugo, standing beside Jim, chuckled suddenly\r\nand remarked:\r\n\r\n\"Look yonder that man Van Vleck. He paralyzed. He been havin'\r\npowerful lotta corn this evenin'.\"\r\n\r\nJim turned and stared at Van Vleck, who had linked arms with little\r\nMartha Katzby and was saying something to her in a low voice. Jim\r\nsaw her try to draw away.\r\n\r\nHe put his whistle to his mouth and blew it.\r\n\r\n\"All right,\" he cried, \"Le's go! Group one tossin' the drumstick,\r\nhigh an' zig-zag, group two, test your mouth organs for the\r\nRiverfront Shuffle. Promise 'em sugar! Flatfoots this way!\r\nOrchestra--let's have the Florida Drag-Out played as a dirge.\"\r\n\r\nThere was an unaccustomed sharpness in his voice and the exercises\r\nbegan with a mutter of facetious protest.\r\n\r\nWith his smoldering grievance directing itself toward Van Vleck,\r\nJim was walking here and there among the groups when Hugo tapped\r\nhim suddenly on the arm. He looked around. Two participants had\r\nwithdrawn from the mouth organ institute--one of them was Van Vleck\r\nand he was giving a drink out of his flask to fifteen-year-old\r\nRonald Harlan.\r\n\r\nJim strode across the room. Van Vleck turned defiantly as he came\r\nup.\r\n\r\n\"All right,\" said Jim, trembling with anger, \"you know the rules.\r\nYou get out!\"\r\n\r\nThe music died slowly away and there was a sudden drifting over in\r\nthe direction of the trouble. Somebody snickered. An atmosphere\r\nof anticipation formed instantly. Despite the fact that they all\r\nliked Jim their sympathies were divided--Van Vleck was one of them.\r\n\r\n\"Get out!\" repeated Jim, more quietly.\r\n\r\n\"Are you talking to me?\" inquired Van Vleck coldly.\r\n\r\n\"Yes.\"\r\n\r\n\"Then you better say 'sir.'\"\r\n\r\n\"I wouldn't say 'sir' to anybody that'd give a little boy whisky!\r\nYou get out!\"\r\n\r\n\"Look here!\" said Van Vleck furiously. \"You've butted in once too\r\nmuch. I've known Ronald since he was two years old. Ask HIM if he\r\nwants YOU to tell him what he can do!\"\r\n\r\nRonald Harlan, his dignity offended, grew several years older and\r\nlooked haughtily at Jim.\r\n\r\n\"Mind your own business!\" he said defiantly, albeit a little\r\nguiltily.\r\n\r\n\"Hear that?\" demanded Van Vleck. \"My God, can't you see you're\r\njust a servant? Ronald here'd no more think of asking you to his\r\nparty than he would his bootlegger.\"\r\n\r\n\"Youbettergetout!\" cried Jim incoherently.\r\n\r\nVan Vleck did not move. Reaching out suddenly, Jim caught his\r\nwrist and jerking it behind his back forced his arm upward until\r\nVan Vleck bent forward in agony. Jim leaned and picked the flask\r\nfrom the floor with his free hand. Then he signed Hugo to open the\r\nhall-door, uttered an abrupt \"You STEP!\" and marched his helpless\r\ncaptive out into the hall where he literally THREW him downstairs,\r\nhead over heels bumping from wall to banister, and hurled his flask\r\nafter him.\r\n\r\nThen he reentered his academy, closed the door behind him and stood\r\nwith his back against it.\r\n\r\n\"It--it happens to be a rule that nobody drinks while in this\r\nAcademy.\" He paused, looking from face to face, finding there\r\nsympathy, awe, disapproval, conflicting emotions. They stirred\r\nuneasily. He caught Amanthis's eye, fancied he saw a faint nod of\r\nencouragement and, with almost an effort, went on:\r\n\r\n\"I just HAD to throw that fella out an' you-all know it.\" Then he\r\nconcluded with a transparent affectation of dismissing an\r\nunimportant matter--\"All right, let's go! Orchestra--!\"\r\n\r\nBut no one felt exactly like going on. The spontaneity of the\r\nproceedings had been violently disturbed. Someone made a run or\r\ntwo on the sliding guitar and several of the girls began whamming\r\nat the leer on the punching bags, but Ronald Harlan, followed by\r\ntwo other boys, got their hats and went silently out the door.\r\n\r\nJim and Hugo moved among the groups as usual until a certain\r\nmeasure of routine activity was restored but the enthusiasm was\r\nunrecapturable and Jim, shaken and discouraged, considered\r\ndiscontinuing school for the day. But he dared not. If they went\r\nhome in this mood they might not come back. The whole thing\r\ndepended on a mood. He must recreate it, he thought frantically--\r\nnow, at once!\r\n\r\nBut try as he might, there was little response. He himself was not\r\nhappy--he could communicate no gaiety to them. They watched his\r\nefforts listlessly and, he thought, a little contemptuously.\r\n\r\nThen the tension snapped when the door burst suddenly open,\r\nprecipitating a brace of middle-aged and excited women into the\r\nroom. No person over twenty-one had ever entered the Academy\r\nbefore--but Van Vleck had gone direct to headquarters. The women\r\nwere Mrs. Clifton Garneau and Mrs. Poindexter Katzby, two of the\r\nmost fashionable and, at present, two of the most flurried women in\r\nSouthampton. They were in search of their daughters as, in these\r\ndays, so many women continually are.\r\n\r\nThe business was over in about three minutes.\r\n\r\n\"And as for you!\" cried Mrs. Clifton Garneau in an awful voice,\r\n\"your idea is to run a bar and--and opium den for children! You\r\nghastly, horrible, unspeakable man! I can smell morphin fumes!\r\nDon't tell me I can't smell morphin fumes. I can smell morphin\r\nfumes!\"\r\n\r\n\"And,\" bellowed Mrs. Poindexter Katzby, \"you have colored men\r\naround! You have colored girls hidden! I'm going to the police!\"\r\n\r\nNot content with herding their own daughters from the room, they\r\ninsisted on the exodus of their friends' daughters. Jim was not a\r\nlittle touched when several of them--including even little Martha\r\nKatzby, before she was snatched fiercely away by her mother--came\r\nup and shook hands with him. But they were all going, haughtily,\r\nregretfully or with shame-faced mutters of apology.\r\n\r\n\"Good-by,\" he told them wistfully. \"In the morning I'll send you\r\nthe money that's due you.\"\r\n\r\nAnd, after all, they were not sorry to go. Outside, the sound of\r\ntheir starting motors, the triumphant put-put of their cut-outs\r\ncutting the warm September air, was a jubilant sound--a sound of\r\nyouth and hopes high as the sun. Down to the ocean, to roll in the\r\nwaves and forget--forget him and their discomfort at his\r\nhumiliation.\r\n\r\nThey were gone--he was alone with Hugo in the room. He sat down\r\nsuddenly with his face in his hands.\r\n\r\n\"Hugo,\" he said huskily. \"They don't want us up here.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't you care,\" said a voice.\r\n\r\nHe looked up to see Amanthis standing beside him.\r\n\r\n\"You better go with them,\" he told her. \"You better not be seen\r\nhere with me.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why?\"\r\n\r\n\"Because you're in society now and I'm no better to those people\r\nthan a servant. You're in society--I fixed that up. You better go\r\nor they won't invite you to any of their dances.\"\r\n\r\n\"They won't anyhow, Jim,\" she said gently. \"They didn't invite me\r\nto the one tomorrow night.\"\r\n\r\nHe looked up indignantly.\r\n\r\n\"They DIDN'T?\"\r\n\r\nShe shook her head.\r\n\r\n\"I'll MAKE 'em!\" he said wildly. \"I'll tell 'em they got to. I'll--\r\nI'll--\"\r\n\r\nShe came close to him with shining eyes.\r\n\r\n\"Don't you mind, Jim,\" she soothed him. \"Don't you mind. They\r\ndon't matter. We'll have a party of our own tomorrow--just you and\r\nI.\"\r\n\r\n\"I come from right good folks,\" he said, defiantly. \"Pore though.\"\r\n\r\nShe laid her hand softly on his shoulder.\r\n\r\n\"I understand. You're better than all of them put together, Jim.\"\r\n\r\nHe got up and went to the window and stared out mournfully into the\r\nlate afternoon.\r\n\r\n\"I reckon I should have let you sleep in that hammock.\"\r\n\r\nShe laughed.\r\n\r\n\"I'm awfully glad you didn't.\"\r\n\r\nHe turned and faced the room, and his face was dark.\r\n\r\n\"Sweep up and lock up, Hugo,\" he said, his voice trembling. \"The\r\nsummer's over and we're going down home.\"\r\n\r\nAutumn had come early. Jim Powell woke next morning to find his\r\nroom cool, and the phenomenon of frosted breath in September\r\nabsorbed him for a moment to the exclusion of the day before. Then\r\nthe lines of his face drooped with unhappiness as he remembered the\r\nhumiliation which had washed the cheery glitter from the summer.\r\nThere was nothing left for him except to go back where he was\r\nknown, where under no provocation were such things said to white\r\npeople as had been said to him here.\r\n\r\nAfter breakfast a measure of his customary light-heartedness\r\nreturned. He was a child of the South--brooding was alien to his\r\nnature. He could conjure up an injury only a certain number of\r\ntimes before it faded into the great vacancy of the past.\r\n\r\nBut when, from force of habit, he strolled over to his defunct\r\nestablishment, already as obsolete as Snorkey's late sanitarium,\r\nmelancholy again dwelt in his heart. Hugo was there, a specter of\r\ndespair, deep in the lugubrious blues amidst his master's broken\r\nhopes.\r\n\r\nUsually a few words from Jim were enough to raise him to an\r\ninarticulate ecstasy, but this morning there were no words to\r\nutter. For two months Hugo had lived on a pinnacle of which he had\r\nnever dreamed. He had enjoyed his work simply and passionately,\r\narriving before school hours and lingering long after Mr. Powell's\r\npupils had gone.\r\n\r\nThe day dragged toward a not-too-promising night. Amanthis did not\r\nappear and Jim wondered forlornly if she had not changed her mind\r\nabout dining with him that night. Perhaps it would be better if\r\nshe were not seen with them. But then, he reflected dismally, no\r\none would see them anyhow--everybody was going to the big dance at\r\nthe Harlans' house.\r\n\r\nWhen twilight threw unbearable shadows into the school hall he\r\nlocked it up for the last time, took down the sign \"James Powell;\r\nJ. M., Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar,\" and went back to his hotel.\r\nLooking over his scrawled accounts he saw that there was another\r\nmonth's rent to pay on his school and some bills for windows broken\r\nand new equipment that had hardly been used. Jim had lived in\r\nstate, and he realized that financially he would have nothing to\r\nshow for the summer after all.\r\n\r\nWhen he had finished he took his new dress-suit out of its box and\r\ninspected it, running his hand over the satin of the lapels and\r\nlining. This, at least, he owned and perhaps in Tarleton somebody\r\nwould ask him to a party where he could wear it.\r\n\r\n\"Shucks!\" he said scoffingly. \"It was just a no account old\r\nacademy, anyhow. Some of those boys round the garage down home\r\ncould of beat it all hollow.\"\r\n\r\nWhistling \"Jeanne of Jelly-bean Town\" to a not-dispirited rhythm\r\nJim encased himself in his first dress-suit and walked downtown.\r\n\r\n\"Orchids,\" he said to the clerk. He surveyed his purchase with\r\nsome pride. He knew that no girl at the Harlan dance would wear\r\nanything lovelier than these exotic blossoms that leaned\r\nlanguorously backward against green ferns.\r\n\r\nIn a taxi-cab, carefully selected to look like a private car, he\r\ndrove to Amanthis's boarding-house. She came down wearing a rose-\r\ncolored evening dress into which the orchids melted like colors\r\ninto a sunset.\r\n\r\n\"I reckon we'll go to the Casino Hotel,\" he suggested, \"unless you\r\ngot some other place--\"\r\n\r\nAt their table, looking out over the dark ocean, his mood became a\r\ncontended sadness. The windows were shut against the cool but the\r\norchestra played \"Kalula\" and \"South Sea Moon\" and for awhile, with\r\nher young loveliness opposite him, he felt himself to be a romantic\r\nparticipant in the life around him. They did not dance, and he was\r\nglad--it would have reminded him of that other brighter and more\r\nradiant dance to which they could not go.\r\n\r\nAfter dinner they took a taxi and followed the sandy roads for an\r\nhour, glimpsing the now starry ocean through the casual trees.\r\n\r\n\"I want to thank you,\" she said, \"for all you've done for me, Jim.\"\r\n\r\n\"That's all right--we Powells ought to stick together.\"\r\n\r\n\"What are you going to do?\"\r\n\r\n\"I'm going to Tarleton tomorrow.\"\r\n\r\n\"I'm sorry,\" she said softly. \"Are you going to drive down?\"\r\n\r\n\"I got to. I got to get the car south because I couldn't get what\r\nshe was worth by sellin' it. You don't suppose anybody's stole my\r\ncar out of your barn?\" he asked in sudden alarm.\r\n\r\nShe repressed a smile.\r\n\r\n\"No.\"\r\n\r\n\"I'm sorry about this--about you,\" he went on huskily, \"and--and I\r\nwould like to have gone to just one of their dances. You shouldn't\r\nof stayed with me yesterday. Maybe it kept 'em from asking you.\"\r\n\r\n\"Jim,\" she suggested eagerly, \"let's go and stand outside and\r\nlisten to their old music. We don't care.\"\r\n\r\n\"They'll be coming out,\" he objected.\r\n\r\n\"No, it's too cold. Besides there's nothing they could do to you\r\nany more than they HAVE done.\"\r\n\r\nShe gave the chauffeur a direction and a few minutes later they\r\nstopped in front of the heavy Georgian beauty of the Madison Harlan\r\nhouse whence the windows cast their gaiety in bright patches on the\r\nlawn. There was laughter inside and the plaintive wind of\r\nfashionable horns, and now and again the slow, mysterious shuffle\r\nof dancing feet.\r\n\r\n\"Let's go up close,\" whispered Amanthis in an ecstatic trance, \"I\r\nwant to hear.\"\r\n\r\nThey walked toward the house, keeping in the shadow of the great\r\ntrees. Jim proceeded with awe--suddenly he stopped and seized\r\nAmanthis's arm.\r\n\r\n\"Man!\" he cried in an excited whisper. \"Do you know what that is?\"\r\n\r\n\"A night watchman?\" Amanthis cast a startled look around.\r\n\r\n\"It's Rastus Muldoon's Band from Savannah! I heard 'em once, and I\r\nKNOW. It's Rastus Muldoon's Band!\"\r\n\r\nThey moved closer till they could see first pompadours, then\r\nslicked male heads, and high coiffures and finally even bobbed hair\r\npressed under black ties. They could distinguish chatter below the\r\nceaseless laughter. Two figures appeared on the porch, gulped\r\nsomething quickly from flasks and returned inside. But the music\r\nhad bewitched Jim Powell. His eyes were fixed and he moved his\r\nfeet like a blind man.\r\n\r\nPressed in close behind some dark bushes they listened. The number\r\nended. A breeze from the ocean blew over them and Jim shivered\r\nslightly. Then, in a wistful whisper:\r\n\r\n\"I've always wanted to lead that band. Just once.\" His voice grew\r\nlistless. \"Come on. Let's go. I reckon I don't belong around\r\nhere.\"\r\n\r\nHe held out his arm to her but instead of taking it she stepped\r\nsuddenly out of the bushes and into a bright patch of light.\r\n\r\n\"Come on, Jim,\" she said startlingly. \"Let's go inside.\"\r\n\r\n\"What--?\"\r\n\r\nShe seized his arm and though he drew back in a sort of stupefied\r\nhorror at her boldness she urged him persistently toward the great\r\nfront door.\r\n\r\n\"Watch out!\" he gasped. \"Somebody's coming out of that house and\r\nsee us.\"\r\n\r\n\"No, Jim,\" she said firmly. \"Nobody's coming out of that house--\r\nbut two people are going in.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why?\" he demanded wildly, standing in full glare of the porte-\r\ncochere lamps. \"Why?\"\r\n\r\n\"Why?\" she mocked him. \"Why, just because this dance happens to be\r\ngiven for me.\"\r\n\r\nHe thought she was mad.\r\n\r\n\"Come home before they see us,\" he begged her.\r\n\r\nThe great doors swung open and a gentleman stepped out on the\r\nporch. In horror Jim recognized Mr. Madison Harlan. He made a\r\nmovement as though to break away and run. But the man walked down\r\nthe steps holding out both hands to Amanthis.\r\n\r\n\"Hello at last,\" he cried. \"Where on earth have you two been?\r\nCousin Amanthis--\" He kissed her, and turned cordially to Jim.\r\n\"And for you, Mr. Powell,\" he went on, \"to make up for being late\r\nyou've got to promise that for just one number you're going to lead\r\nthat band.\"\r\n\r\nNew Jersey was warm, all except the part that was under water, and\r\nthat mattered only to the fishes. All the tourists who rode\r\nthrough the long green miles stopped their cars in front of a\r\nspreading old-fashioned country house and looked at the red swing\r\non the lawn and the wide, shady porch, and sighed and drove on--\r\nswerving a little to avoid a jet-black body-servant in the road.\r\nThe body-servant was applying a hammer and nails to a decayed\r\nflivver which flaunted from its rear the legend, \"Tarleton, Ga.\"\r\n\r\nA girl with yellow hair and a warm color to her face was lying in\r\nthe hammock looking as though she could fall asleep any moment.\r\nNear her sat a gentleman in an extraordinarily tight suit. They\r\nhad come down together the day before from the fashionable resort\r\nat Southampton.\r\n\r\n\"When you first appeared,\" she was explaining, \"I never thought I'd\r\nsee you again so I made that up about the barber and all. As a\r\nmatter of fact, I've been around quite a bit--with or without\r\nbrassknuckles. I'm coming out this autumn.\"\r\n\r\n\"I reckon I had a lot to learn,\" said Jim.\r\n\r\n\"And you see,\" went on Amanthis, looking at him rather anxiously,\r\n\"I'd been invited up to Southampton to visit my cousins--and when\r\nyou said you were going, I wanted to see what you'd do. I always\r\nslept at the Harlans' but I kept a room at the boarding-house so\r\nyou wouldn't know. The reason I didn't get there on the right\r\ntrain was because I had to come early and warn a lot of people to\r\npretend not to know me.\"\r\n\r\nJim got up, nodding his head in comprehension.\r\n\r\n\"I reckon I and Hugo had better be movin' along. We got to make\r\nBaltimore by night.\"\r\n\r\n\"That's a long way.\"\r\n\r\n\"I want to sleep south tonight,\" he said simply.\r\n\r\nTogether they walked down the path and past the idiotic statue of\r\nDiana on the lawn.\r\n\r\n\"You see,\" added Amanthis gently, \"you don't have to be rich up\r\nhere in order to--to go around, any more than you do in Georgia--\"\r\nShe broke off abruptly, \"Won't you come back next year and start\r\nanother Academy?\"\r\n\r\n\"No mamm, not me. That Mr. Harlan told me I could go on with the\r\none I had but I told him no.\"\r\n\r\n\"Haven't you--didn't you make money?\"\r\n\r\n\"No mamm,\" he answered. \"I got enough of my own income to just get\r\nme home. I didn't have my principal along. One time I was way\r\nahead but I was livin' high and there was my rent an' apparatus and\r\nthose musicians. Besides, there at the end I had to pay what\r\nthey'd advanced me for their lessons.\"\r\n\r\n\"You shouldn't have done that!\" cried Amanthis indignantly.\r\n\r\n\"They didn't want me to, but I told 'em they'd have to take it.\"\r\n\r\nHe didn't consider it necessary to mention that Mr. Harlan had\r\ntried to present him with a check.\r\n\r\nThey reached the automobile just as Hugo drove in his last nail.\r\nJim opened a pocket of the door and took from it an unlabeled\r\nbottle containing a whitish-yellow liquid.\r\n\r\n\"I intended to get you a present,\" he told her awkwardly, \"but my\r\nmoney got away before I could, so I thought I'd send you something\r\nfrom Georgia. This here's just a personal remembrance. It won't\r\ndo for you to drink but maybe after you come out into society you\r\nmight want to show some of those young fellas what good old corn\r\ntastes like.\"\r\n\r\nShe took the bottle.\r\n\r\n\"Thank you, Jim.\"\r\n\r\n\"That's all right.\" He turned to Hugo. \"I reckon we'll go along\r\nnow. Give the lady the hammer.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, you can have the hammer,\" said Amanthis tearfully. \"Oh, won't\r\nyou promise to come back?\"\r\n\r\n\"Someday--maybe.\"\r\n\r\nHe looked for a moment at her yellow hair and her blue eyes misty\r\nwith sleep and tears. Then he got into his car and as his foot\r\nfound the clutch his whole manner underwent a change.\r\n\r\n\"I'll say good-by mamm,\" he announced with impressive dignity,\r\n\"we're goin' south for the winter.\"\r\n\r\nThe gesture of his straw hat indicated Palm Beach, St. Augustine,\r\nMiami. His body-servant spun the crank, gained his seat and became\r\npart of the intense vibration into which the automobile was thrown.\r\n\r\n\"South for the winter,\" repeated Jim, and then he added softly,\r\n\"You're the prettiest girl I ever knew. You go back up there and\r\nlie down in that hammock, and sleep--sle-eep--\"\r\n\r\nIt was almost a lullaby, as he said it. He bowed to her,\r\nmagnificently, profoundly, including the whole North in the\r\nsplendor of his obeisance--\r\n\r\nThen they were gone down the road in quite a preposterous cloud of\r\ndust. Just before they reached the first bend Amanthis saw them\r\ncome to a full stop, dismount and shove the top part of the car on\r\nto the bottom pan. They took their seats again without looking\r\naround. Then the bend--and they were out of sight, leaving only a\r\nfaint brown mist to show that they had passed.","rendered":"

by\u00a0F. Scott Fitzgerald<\/em><\/p>\n

originally published in <\/em>International (May 1923)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Parts of New Jersey, as you know, are under water, and other parts
\nare under continual surveillance by the authorities. But here and
\nthere lie patches of garden country dotted with old-fashioned frame
\nmansions, which have wide shady porches and a red swing on the
\nlawn. And perhaps, on the widest and shadiest of the porches there
\nis even a hammock left over from the hammock days, stirring gently
\nin a mid-Victorian wind.<\/p>\n

When tourists come to such last-century landmarks they stop their
\ncars and gaze for a while and then mutter: “Well, thank God this
\nage is joined on to something” or else they say: “Well, of course,
\nthat house is mostly halls and has a thousand rats and one
\nbathroom, but there’s an atmosphere about it–”<\/p>\n

The tourist doesn’t stay long. He drives on to his Elizabethan
\nvilla of pressed cardboard or his early Norman meat-market or his
\nmedieval Italian pigeon-coop–because this is the twentieth century
\nand Victorian houses are as unfashionable as the works of Mrs.
\nHumphry Ward.<\/p>\n

He can’t see the hammock from the road–but sometimes there’s a
\ngirl in the hammock. There was this afternoon. She was asleep in
\nit and apparently unaware of the esthetic horrors which surrounded
\nher, the stone statue of Diana, for instance, which grinned
\nidiotically under the sunlight on the lawn.<\/p>\n

There was something enormously yellow about the whole scene–there
\nwas this sunlight, for instance, that was yellow, and the hammock
\nwas of the particularly hideous yellow peculiar to hammocks, and
\nthe girl’s yellow hair was spread out upon the hammock in a sort of
\ninvidious comparison.<\/p>\n

She slept with her lips closed and her hands clasped behind her
\nhead, as it is proper for young girls to sleep. Her breast rose
\nand fell slightly with no more emphasis than the sway of the
\nhammock’s fringe.<\/p>\n

Her name, Amanthis, was as old-fashioned as the house she lived in.
\nI regret to say that her mid-Victorian connections ceased abruptly
\nat this point.<\/p>\n

Now if this were a moving picture (as, of course, I hope it will
\nsome day be) I would take as many thousand feet of her as I was
\nallowed–then I would move the camera up close and show the yellow
\ndown on the back of her neck where her hair stopped and the warm
\ncolor of her cheeks and arms, because I like to think of her
\nsleeping there, as you yourself might have slept, back in your
\nyoung days. Then I would hire a man named Israel Glucose to write
\nsome idiotic line of transition, and switch thereby to another
\nscene that was taking place at no particular spot far down the
\nroad.<\/p>\n

In a moving automobile sat a southern gentleman accompanied by his
\nbody-servant. He was on his way, after a fashion, to New York but
\nhe was somewhat hampered by the fact that the upper and lower
\nportions of his automobile were no longer in exact juxtaposition.
\nIn fact from time to time the two riders would dismount, shove the
\nbody on to the chassis, corner to corner, and then continue onward,
\nvibrating slightly in involuntary unison with the motor.<\/p>\n

Except that it had no door in back the car might have been built
\nearly in the mechanical age. It was covered with the mud of eight
\nstates and adorned in front by an enormous but defunct motometer
\nand behind by a mangy pennant bearing the legend “Tarleton, Ga.”
\nIn the dim past someone had begun to paint the hood yellow but
\nunfortunately had been called away when but half through the task.<\/p>\n

As the gentleman and his body-servant were passing the house where
\nAmanthis lay beautifully asleep in the hammock, something happened–
\nthe body fell off the car. My only apology for stating this so
\nsuddenly is that it happened very suddenly indeed. When the noise
\nhad died down and the dust had drifted away master and man arose
\nand inspected the two halves.<\/p>\n

“Look-a-there,” said the gentleman in disgust, “the doggone thing
\ngot all separated that time.”<\/p>\n

“She bust in two,” agreed the body-servant.<\/p>\n

“Hugo,” said the gentleman, after some consideration, “we got to
\nget a hammer an’ nails an’ TACK it on.”<\/p>\n

They glanced up at the Victorian house. On all sides faintly
\nirregular fields stretched away to a faintly irregular unpopulated
\nhorizon. There was no choice, so the black Hugo opened the gate
\nand followed his master up a gravel walk, casting only the blas\u00e9
\nglances of a confirmed traveler at the red swing and the stone
\nstatue of Diana which turned on them a storm-crazed stare.<\/p>\n

At the exact moment when they reached the porch Amanthis awoke, sat
\nup suddenly and looked them over.<\/p>\n

The gentleman was young, perhaps twenty-four, and his name was Jim
\nPowell. He was dressed in a tight and dusty readymade suit which
\nwas evidently expected to take flight at a moment’s notice, for it
\nwas secured to his body by a line of six preposterous buttons.<\/p>\n

There were supernumerary buttons upon the coat-sleeves also and
\nAmanthis could not resist a glance to determine whether or not more
\nbuttons ran up the side of his trouser leg. But the trouser
\nbottoms were distinguished only by their shape, which was that of a
\nbell. His vest was cut low, barely restraining an amazing necktie
\nfrom fluttering in the wind.<\/p>\n

He bowed formally, dusting his knees with a thatched straw hat.
\nSimultaneously he smiled, half shutting his faded blue eyes and
\ndisplaying white and beautifully symmetrical teeth.<\/p>\n

“Good evenin’,” he said in abandoned Georgian. “My automobile has
\nmet with an accident out yonder by your gate. I wondered if it
\nwouldn’t be too much to ask you if I could have the use of a hammer
\nand some tacks–nails, for a little while.”<\/p>\n

Amanthis laughed. For a moment she laughed uncontrollably. Mr.
\nJim Powell laughed, politely and appreciatively, with her. His
\nbody-servant, deep in the throes of colored adolescence, alone
\npreserved a dignified gravity.<\/p>\n

“I better introduce who I am, maybe,” said the visitor. “My name’s
\nPowell. I’m a resident of Tarleton, Georgia. This here nigger’s
\nmy boy Hugo.”<\/p>\n

“Your SON!” The girl stared from one to the other in wild
\nfascination.<\/p>\n

“No, he’s my body-servant, I guess you’d call it. We call a nigger
\na boy down yonder.”<\/p>\n

At this reference to the finer customs of his native soil the boy
\nHugo put his hands behind his back and looked darkly and
\nsuperciliously down the lawn.<\/p>\n

“Yas’m,” he muttered, “I’m a body-servant.”<\/p>\n

“Where you going in your automobile,” demanded Amanthis.<\/p>\n

“Goin’ north for the summer.”<\/p>\n

“Where to?”<\/p>\n

The tourist waved his hand with a careless gesture as if to
\nindicate the Adirondacks, the Thousand Islands, Newport–but he
\nsaid:<\/p>\n

“We’re tryin’ New York.”<\/p>\n

“Have you ever been there before?”<\/p>\n

“Never have. But I been to Atlanta lots of times. An’ we passed
\nthrough all kinds of cities this trip. Man!”<\/p>\n

He whistled to express the enormous spectacularity of his recent
\ntravels.<\/p>\n

“Listen,” said Amanthis intently, “you better have something to
\neat. Tell your–your body-servant to go ’round in back and ask the
\ncook to send us out some sandwiches and lemonade. Or maybe you
\ndon’t drink lemonade–very few people do any more.”<\/p>\n

Mr. Powell by a circular motion of his finger sped Hugo on the
\ndesignated mission. Then he seated himself gingerly in a rocking-
\nchair and began revolving his thatched straw hat rapidly in his
\nhands.<\/p>\n

“You cer’nly are mighty kind,” he told her. “An’ if I wanted
\nanything stronger than lemonade I got a bottle of good old corn out
\nin the car. I brought it along because I thought maybe I wouldn’t
\nbe able to drink the whisky they got up here.”<\/p>\n

“Listen,” she said, “my name’s Powell too. Amanthis Powell.”<\/p>\n

“Say, is that right?” He laughed ecstatically. “Maybe we’re kin
\nto each other. I come from mighty good people,” he went on. “Pore
\nthough. I got some money because my aunt she was using it to keep
\nher in a sanitarium and she died.” He paused, presumably out of
\nrespect to his late aunt. Then he concluded with brisk
\nnonchalance, “I ain’t touched the principal but I got a lot of the
\nincome all at once so I thought I’d come north for the summer.”<\/p>\n

At this point Hugo reappeared on the veranda steps and became
\naudible.<\/p>\n

“White lady back there she asked me don’t I want eat some too.
\nWhat I tell her?”<\/p>\n

“You tell her yes mamm if she be so kind,” directed his master.
\nAnd as Hugo retired he confided to Amanthis: “That boy’s got no
\nsense at all. He don’t want to do nothing without I tell him he
\ncan. I brought him up,” he added, not without pride.<\/p>\n

When the sandwiches arrived Mr. Powell stood up. He was
\nunaccustomed to white servants and obviously expected an
\nintroduction.<\/p>\n

“Are you a married lady?” he inquired of Amanthis, when the servant
\nwas gone.<\/p>\n

“No,” she answered, and added from the security of eighteen, “I’m
\nan old maid.”<\/p>\n

Again he laughed politely.<\/p>\n

“You mean you’re a society girl.”<\/p>\n

She shook her head. Mr. Powell noted with embarrassed enthusiasm
\nthe particular yellowness of her yellow hair.<\/p>\n

“Does this old place look like it?” she said cheerfully. “No, you
\nperceive in me a daughter of the countryside. Color–one hundred
\npercent spontaneous–in the daytime anyhow. Suitors–promising
\nyoung barbers from the neighboring village with somebody’s late
\nhair still clinging to their coat-sleeves.”<\/p>\n

“Your daddy oughtn’t to let you go with a country barber,” said the
\ntourist disapprovingly. He considered–“You ought to be a New York
\nsociety girl.”<\/p>\n

“No.” Amanthis shook her head sadly. “I’m too good-looking. To
\nbe a New York society girl you have to have a long nose and
\nprojecting teeth and dress like the actresses did three years ago.”<\/p>\n

Jim began to tap his foot rhythmically on the porch and in a moment
\nAmanthis discovered that she was unconsciously doing the same
\nthing.<\/p>\n

“Stop!” she commanded, “Don’t make me do that.”<\/p>\n

He looked down at his foot.<\/p>\n

“Excuse me,” he said humbly. “I don’t know–it’s just something I
\ndo.”<\/p>\n

This intense discussion was now interrupted by Hugo who appeared on
\nthe steps bearing a hammer and a handful of nails.<\/p>\n

Mr. Powell arose unwillingly and looked at his watch.<\/p>\n

“We got to go, daggone it,” he said, frowning heavily. “See here.
\nWouldn’t you LIKE to be a New York society girl and go to those
\ndances an’ all, like you read about, where they throw gold pieces
\naway?”<\/p>\n

She looked at him with a curious expression.<\/p>\n

“Don’t your folks know some society people?” he went on.<\/p>\n

“All I’ve got’s my daddy–and, you see, he’s a judge.”<\/p>\n

“That’s too bad,” he agreed.<\/p>\n

She got herself by some means from the hammock and they went down
\ntoward the road, side by side.<\/p>\n

“Well, I’ll keep my eyes open for you and let you know,” he
\npersisted. “A pretty girl like you ought to go around in society.
\nWe may be kin to each other, you see, and us Powells ought to stick
\ntogether.”<\/p>\n

“What are you going to do in New York?”<\/p>\n

They were now almost at the gate and the tourist pointed to the two
\ndepressing sectors of his automobile.<\/p>\n

“I’m goin’ to drive a taxi. This one right here. Only it’s got so
\nit busts in two all the time.”<\/p>\n

“You’re going to drive THAT in New York?”<\/p>\n

Jim looked at her uncertainly. Such a pretty girl should certainly
\ncontrol the habit of shaking all over upon no provocation at all.<\/p>\n

“Yes mamm,” he said with dignity.<\/p>\n

Amanthis watched while they placed the upper half of the car upon
\nthe lower half and nailed it severely into place. Then Mr. Powell
\ntook the wheel and his body-servant climbed in beside him.<\/p>\n

“I’m cer’nly very much obliged to you indeed for your hospitality.
\nConvey my respects to your father.”<\/p>\n

“I will,” she assured him. “Come back and see me, if you don’t
\nmind barbers in the room.”<\/p>\n

He dismissed this unpleasant thought with a gesture.<\/p>\n

“Your company would always be charming.” He put the car into gear
\nas though to drown out the temerity of his parting speech. “You’re
\nthe prettiest girl I’ve seen up north–by far.”<\/p>\n

Then with a groan and a rattle Mr. Powell of southern Georgia with
\nhis own car and his own body-servant and his own ambitions and his
\nown private cloud of dust continued on north for the summer.<\/p>\n

She thought she would never see him again. She lay in her hammock,
\nslim and beautiful, opened her left eye slightly to see June come
\nin and then closed it and retired contentedly back into her dreams.<\/p>\n

But one day when the midsummer vines had climbed the precarious
\nsides of the red swing in the lawn, Mr. Jim Powell of Tarleton,
\nGeorgia, came vibrating back into her life. They sat on the wide
\nporch as before.<\/p>\n

“I’ve got a great scheme,” he told her.<\/p>\n

“Did you drive your taxi like you said?”<\/p>\n

“Yes mamm, but the business was right bad. I waited around in
\nfront of all those hotels and theaters an’ nobody ever got in.”<\/p>\n

“NObody?”<\/p>\n

“Well, one night there was some drunk fellas they got in, only just
\nas I was gettin’ started my automobile came apart. And another
\nnight it was rainin’ and there wasn’t no other taxis and a lady got
\nin because she said she had to go a long ways. But before we got
\nthere she made me stop and she got out. She seemed kinda mad and
\nshe went walkin’ off in the rain. Mighty proud lot of people they
\ngot up in New York.”<\/p>\n

“And so you’re going home?” asked Amanthis sympathetically.<\/p>\n

“No MAMM. I got an idea.” His blue eyes grew narrow. “Has that
\nbarber been around here–with hair on his sleeves?”<\/p>\n

“No. He’s–he’s gone away.”<\/p>\n

“Well, then, first thing is I want to leave this car of mine here
\nwith you, if that’s all right. It ain’t the right color for a
\ntaxi. To pay for its keep I’d like to have you drive it just as
\nmuch as you want. ‘Long as you got a hammer an’ nails with you
\nthere ain’t much bad that can happen–”<\/p>\n

“I’ll take care of it,” interrupted Amanthis, “but where are YOU
\ngoing?”<\/p>\n

“Southampton. It’s about the most aristocratic watering trough–
\nwatering-place there is around here, so that’s where I’m going.”<\/p>\n

She sat up in amazement.<\/p>\n

“What are you going to do there?”<\/p>\n

“Listen.” He leaned toward her confidentially. “Were you serious
\nabout wanting to be a New York society girl?”<\/p>\n

“Deadly serious.”<\/p>\n

“That’s all I wanted to know,” he said inscrutably. “You just wait
\nhere on this porch a couple of weeks and–and sleep. And if any
\nbarbers come to see you with hair on their sleeves you tell ’em
\nyou’re too sleepy to see ’em.”<\/p>\n

“What then?”<\/p>\n

“Then you’ll hear from me. Just tell your old daddy he can do all
\nthe judging he wants but you’re goin’ to do some DANCIN’. Mamm,”
\nhe continued decisively, “you talk about society! Before one month
\nI’m goin’ to have you in more society than you ever saw.”<\/p>\n

Further than this he would say nothing. His manner conveyed that
\nshe was going to be suspended over a perfect pool of gaiety and
\nviolently immersed, to an accompaniment of: “Is it gay enough for
\nyou, mamm? Shall I let in a little more excitement, mamm?”<\/p>\n

“Well,” answered Amanthis, lazily considering, “there are few
\nthings for which I’d forego the luxury of sleeping through July and
\nAugust–but if you’ll write me a letter I’ll–I’ll run up to
\nSouthampton.”<\/p>\n

Jim snapped his fingers ecstatically.<\/p>\n

“More society,” he assured her with all the confidence at his
\ncommand, “than anybody ever saw.”<\/p>\n

Three days later a young man wearing a straw hat that might have
\nbeen cut from the thatched roof of an English cottage rang the
\ndoorbell of the enormous and astounding Madison Harlan house at
\nSouthampton. He asked the butler if there were any people in the
\nhouse between the ages of sixteen and twenty. He was informed that
\nMiss Genevieve Harlan and Mr. Ronald Harlan answered that
\ndescription and thereupon he handed in a most peculiar card and
\nrequested in fetching Georgian that it be brought to their
\nattention.<\/p>\n

As a result he was closeted for almost an hour with Mr. Ronald
\nHarlan (who was a student at the Hillkiss School) and Miss
\nGenevieve Harlan (who was not uncelebrated at Southampton dances).
\nWhen he left he bore a short note in Miss Harlan’s handwriting
\nwhich he presented together with his peculiar card at the next
\nlarge estate. It happened to be that of the Clifton Garneaus.
\nHere, as if by magic, the same audience was granted him.<\/p>\n

He went on–it was a hot day, and men who could not afford to do so
\nwere carrying their coats on the public highway, but Jim, a native
\nof southernmost Georgia, was as fresh and cool at the last house as
\nat the first. He visited ten houses that day. Anyone following
\nhim in his course might have taken him to be some curiously gifted
\nbook-agent with a much sought-after volume as his stock in trade.<\/p>\n

There was something in his unexpected demand for the adolescent
\nmembers of the family which made hardened butlers lose their
\ncritical acumen. As he left each house a close observer might have
\nseen that fascinated eyes followed him to the door and excited
\nvoices whispered something which hinted at a future meeting.<\/p>\n

The second day he visited twelve houses. Southampton has grown
\nenormously–he might have kept on his round for a week and never
\nseen the same butler twice–but it was only the palatial, the
\namazing houses which intrigued him.<\/p>\n

On the third day he did a thing that many people have been told to
\ndo and few have done–he hired a hall. Perhaps the sixteen-to-
\ntwenty-year-old people in the enormous houses had told him to. The
\nhall he hired had once been “Mr. Snorkey’s Private Gymnasium for
\nGentlemen.” It was situated over a garage on the south edge of
\nSouthampton and in the days of its prosperity had been, I regret to
\nsay, a place where gentlemen could, under Mr. Snorkey’s direction,
\nwork off the effects of the night before. It was now abandoned–
\nMr. Snorkey had given up and gone away and died.<\/p>\n

We will now skip three weeks during which time we may assume that
\nthe project which had to do with hiring a hall and visiting the two
\ndozen largest houses in Southampton got under way.<\/p>\n

The day to which we will skip was the July day on which Mr. James
\nPowell sent a wire to Miss Amanthis Powell saying that if she still
\naspired to the gaiety of the highest society she should set out for
\nSouthampton by the earliest possible train. He himself would meet
\nher at the station.<\/p>\n

Jim was no longer a man of leisure, so when she failed to arrive at
\nthe time her wire had promised he grew restless. He supposed she
\nwas coming on a later train, turned to go back to his–his project–
\nand met her entering the station from the street side.<\/p>\n

“Why, how did you–”<\/p>\n

“Well,” said Amanthis, “I arrived this morning instead, and I
\ndidn’t want to bother you so I found a respectable, not to say
\ndull, boarding-house on the Ocean Road.”<\/p>\n

She was quite different from the indolent Amanthis of the porch
\nhammock, he thought. She wore a suit of robins’ egg blue and a
\nrakish young hat with a curling feather–she was attired not unlike
\nthose young ladies between sixteen and twenty who of late were
\nabsorbing his attention. Yes, she would do very well.<\/p>\n

He bowed her profoundly into a taxicab and got in beside her.<\/p>\n

“Isn’t it about time you told me your scheme?” she suggested.<\/p>\n

“Well, it’s about these society girls up here.” He waved his hand
\nairily. “I know ’em all.”<\/p>\n

“Where are they?”<\/p>\n

“Right now they’re with Hugo. You remember–that’s my body-
\nservant.”<\/p>\n

“With Hugo!” Her eyes widened. “Why? What’s it all about?”<\/p>\n

“Well, I got–I got sort of a school, I guess you’d call it.”<\/p>\n

“A school?”<\/p>\n

“It’s a sort of Academy. And I’m the head of it. I invented it.”<\/p>\n

He flipped a card from his case as though he were shaking down a
\nthermometer.<\/p>\n

“Look.”<\/p>\n

She took the card. In large lettering it bore the legend<\/p>\n

JAMES POWELL; J.M.
\n“Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar”<\/p>\n

She stared in amazement.<\/p>\n

“Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar?” she repeated in awe.<\/p>\n

“Yes mamm.”<\/p>\n

“What does it mean? What–do you SELL ’em?”<\/p>\n

“No mamm, I teach ’em. It’s a profession.”<\/p>\n

“Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar? What’s the J. M.?”<\/p>\n

“That stands for Jazz Master.”<\/p>\n

“But what is it? What’s it about?”<\/p>\n

“Well, you see, it’s like this. One night when I was in New York I
\ngot talkin’ to a young fella who was drunk. He was one of my
\nfares. And he’d taken some society girl somewhere and lost her.”<\/p>\n

“LOST her?”<\/p>\n

“Yes mamm. He forgot her, I guess. And he was right worried.
\nWell, I got to thinkin’ that these girls nowadays–these society
\ngirls–they lead a sort of dangerous life and my course of study
\noffers a means of protection against these dangers.”<\/p>\n

“You teach ’em to use brassknuckles?”<\/p>\n

“Yes mamm, if necessary. Look here, you take a girl and she goes
\ninto some caf\u00e9 where she’s got no business to go. Well then, her
\nescort he gets a little too much to drink an’ he goes to sleep an’
\nthen some other fella comes up and says ‘Hello, sweet mamma’ or
\nwhatever one of those mashers says up here. What does she do? She
\ncan’t scream, on account of no real lady’ll scream nowadays–no–
\nShe just reaches down in her pocket and slips her fingers into a
\npair of Powell’s defensive brassknuckles, d\u00e9butante’s size,
\nexecutes what I call the Society Hook, and Wham! that big fella’s
\non his way to the cellar.”<\/p>\n

“Well–what–what’s the guitar for?” whispered the awed Amanthis.
\n“Do they have to knock somebody over with the guitar?”<\/p>\n

“No, MAMM!” exclaimed Jim in horror. “No mamm. In my course no
\nlady would be taught to raise a guitar against anybody. I teach
\n’em to play. Shucks! you ought to hear ’em. Why, when I’ve given
\n’em two lessons you’d think some of ’em was colored.”<\/p>\n

“And the dice?”<\/p>\n

“Dice? I’m related to a dice. My grandfather was a dice. I teach
\n’em how to make those dice perform. I protect pocketbook as well
\nas person.”<\/p>\n

“Did you–Have you got any pupils?”<\/p>\n

“Mamm I got all the really nice, rich people in the place. What I
\ntold you ain’t all. I teach lots of things. I teach ’em the
\njellyroll–and the Mississippi Sunrise. Why, there was one girl
\nshe came to me and said she wanted to learn to snap her fingers. I
\nmean REALLY snap ’em–like they do. She said she never could snap
\nher fingers since she was little. I gave her two lessons and now
\nWham! Her daddy says he’s goin’ to leave home.”<\/p>\n

“When do you have it?” demanded the weak and shaken Amanthis.<\/p>\n

“Three times a week. We’re goin’ there right now.”<\/p>\n

“And where do I fit in?”<\/p>\n

“Well, you’ll just be one of the pupils. I got it fixed up that
\nyou come from very high-tone people down in New Jersey. I didn’t
\ntell ’em your daddy was a judge–I told ’em he was the man that had
\nthe patent on lump sugar.”<\/p>\n

She gasped.<\/p>\n

“So all you got to do,” he went on, “is to pretend you never saw no
\nbarber.”<\/p>\n

They were now at the south end of the village and Amanthis saw a
\nrow of cars parked in front of a two-story building. The cars were
\nall low, long, rakish and of a brilliant hue. They were the sort
\nof car that is manufactured to solve the millionaire’s problem on
\nhis son’s eighteenth birthday.<\/p>\n

Then Amanthis was ascending a narrow stairs to the second story.
\nHere, painted on a door from which came the sounds of music and
\nlaughter were the words:<\/p>\n

JAMES POWELL; J. M.
\n“Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar”
\nMon.–Wed.–Fri.
\nHours 3-5 P.M.<\/p>\n

“Now if you’ll just step this way–” said the Principal, pushing
\nopen the door.<\/p>\n

Amanthis found herself in a long, bright room, populated with girls
\nand men of about her own age. The scene presented itself to her at
\nfirst as a sort of animated afternoon tea but after a moment she
\nbegan to see, here and there, a motive and a pattern to the
\nproceedings.<\/p>\n

The students were scattered into groups, sitting, kneeling,
\nstanding, but all rapaciously intent on the subjects which
\nengrossed them. From six young ladies gathered in a ring around
\nsome indistinguishable objects came a medley of cries and
\nexclamations–plaintive, pleading, supplicating, exhorting,
\nimploring and lamenting–their voices serving as tenor to an
\nundertone of mysterious clatters.<\/p>\n

Next to this group, four young men were surrounding an adolescent
\nblack, who proved to be none other than Mr. Powell’s late body-
\nservant. The young men were roaring at Hugo apparently unrelated
\nphrases, expressing a wide gamut of emotion. Now their voices rose
\nto a sort of clamor, now they spoke softly and gently, with mellow
\nimplication. Every little while Hugo would answer them with words
\nof approbation, correction or disapproval.<\/p>\n

“What are they doing?” whispered Amanthis to Jim.<\/p>\n

“That there’s a course in southern accent. Lot of young men up
\nhere want to learn southern accent–so we teach it–Georgia,
\nFlorida, Alabama, Eastern Shore, Ole Virginian. Some of ’em even
\nwant straight nigger–for song purposes.”<\/p>\n

They walked around among the groups. Some girls with metal
\nknuckles were furiously insulting two punching bags on each of
\nwhich was painted the leering, winking face of a “masher.” A mixed
\ngroup, led by a banjo tom-tom, were rolling harmonic syllables from
\ntheir guitars. There were couples dancing flat-footed in the
\ncorner to a phonograph record made by Rastus Muldoon’s Savannah
\nBand; there were couples stalking a slow Chicago with a Memphis
\nSideswoop solemnly around the room.<\/p>\n

“Are there any rules?” asked Amanthis.<\/p>\n

Jim considered.<\/p>\n

“Well,” he answered finally, “they can’t smoke unless they’re over
\nsixteen, and the boys have got to shoot square dice and I don’t let
\n’em bring liquor into the Academy.”<\/p>\n

“I see.”<\/p>\n

“And now, Miss Powell, if you’re ready I’ll ask you to take off
\nyour hat and go over and join Miss Genevieve Harlan at that
\npunching bag in the corner.” He raised his voice. “Hugo,” he
\ncalled, “there’s a new student here. Equip her with a pair of
\nPowell’s Defensive Brassknuckles–d\u00e9butante size.”<\/p>\n

I regret to say that I never saw Jim Powell’s famous Jazz School in
\naction nor followed his personally conducted tours into the
\nmysteries of Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar. So I can give you
\nonly such details as were later reported to me by one of his
\nadmiring pupils. During all the discussion of it afterwards no one
\never denied that it was an enormous success, and no pupil ever
\nregretted having received its degree–Bachelor of Jazz.<\/p>\n

The parents innocently assumed that it was a sort of musical and
\ndancing academy, but its real curriculum was transmitted from Santa
\nBarbara to Biddeford Pool by that underground associated press
\nwhich links up the so-called younger generation. Invitations to
\nvisit Southampton were at a premium–and Southampton generally is
\nalmost as dull for young people as Newport.<\/p>\n

The Academy branched out with a small but well-groomed Jazz
\nOrchestra.<\/p>\n

“If I could keep it dark,” Jim confided to Amanthis, “I’d have up
\nRastus Muldoon’s Band from Savannah. That’s the band I’ve always
\nwanted to lead.”<\/p>\n

He was making money. His charges were not exorbitant–as a rule
\nhis pupils were not particularly flush–but he moved from his
\nboarding-house to the Casino Hotel where he took a suite and had
\nHugo serve him his breakfast in bed.<\/p>\n

The establishing of Amanthis as a member of Southampton’s younger
\nset was easier than he had expected. Within a week she was known
\nto everyone in the school by her first name. Miss Genevieve Harlan
\ntook such a fancy to her that she was invited to a sub-deb dance at
\nthe Harlan house–and evidently acquitted herself with tact, for
\nthereafter she was invited to almost every such entertainment in
\nSouthampton.<\/p>\n

Jim saw less of her than he would have liked. Not that her manner
\ntoward him changed–she walked with him often in the mornings, she
\nwas always willing to listen to his plans–but after she was taken
\nup by the fashionable her evenings seemed to be monopolized.
\nSeveral times Jim arrived at her boarding-house to find her out of
\nbreath, as if she had just come in at a run, presumably from some
\nfestivity in which he had no share.<\/p>\n

So as the summer waned he found that one thing was lacking to
\ncomplete the triumph of his enterprise. Despite the hospitality
\nshown to Amanthis, the doors of Southampton were closed to him.
\nPolite to, or rather, fascinated by him as his pupils were from
\nthree to five, after that hour they moved in another world.<\/p>\n

His was the position of a golf professional who, though he may
\nfraternize, and even command, on the links, loses his privileges
\nwith the sun-down. He may look in the club window but he cannot
\ndance. And, likewise, it was not given to Jim to see his teachings
\nput into effect. He could hear the gossip of the morning after–
\nthat was all.<\/p>\n

But while the golf professional, being English, holds himself
\nproudly below his patrons, Jim Powell, who “came from a right good
\nfamily down there–pore though,” lay awake many nights in his hotel
\nbed and heard the music drifting into his window from the Katzbys’
\nhouse or the Beach Club, and turned over restlessly and wondered
\nwhat was the matter. In the early days of his success he had
\nbought himself a dress-suit, thinking that he would soon have a
\nchance to wear it–but it still lay untouched in the box in which
\nit had come from the tailor’s.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, he thought, there was some real gap which separated him
\nfrom the rest. It worried him. One boy in particular, Martin Van
\nVleck, son of Van Vleck the ash-can King, made him conscious of the
\ngap. Van Vleck was twenty-one, a tutoring-school product who still
\nhoped to enter Yale. Several times Jim had heard him make remarks
\nnot intended for Jim’s ear–once in regard to the suit with
\nmultiple buttons, again in reference to Jim’s long, pointed shoes.
\nJim had passed these over.<\/p>\n

He knew that Van Vleck was attending the school chiefly to
\nmonopolize the time of little Martha Katzby, who was just sixteen
\nand too young to have attention of a boy of twenty-one–especially
\nthe attention of Van Vleck, who was so spiritually exhausted by his
\neducational failures that he drew on the rather exhaustible
\ninnocence of sixteen.<\/p>\n

It was late in September, two days before the Harlan dance which
\nwas to be the last and biggest of the season for this younger
\ncrowd. Jim, as usual, was not invited. He had hoped that he would
\nbe. The two young Harlans, Ronald and Genevieve, had been his
\nfirst patrons when he arrived at Southampton–and it was Genevieve
\nwho had taken such a fancy to Amanthis. To have been at their
\ndance–the most magnificent dance of all–would have crowned and
\njustified the success of the waning summer.<\/p>\n

His class, gathering for the afternoon, was loudly anticipating the
\nnext day’s revel with no more thought of him than if he had been
\nthe family butler. Hugo, standing beside Jim, chuckled suddenly
\nand remarked:<\/p>\n

“Look yonder that man Van Vleck. He paralyzed. He been havin’
\npowerful lotta corn this evenin’.”<\/p>\n

Jim turned and stared at Van Vleck, who had linked arms with little
\nMartha Katzby and was saying something to her in a low voice. Jim
\nsaw her try to draw away.<\/p>\n

He put his whistle to his mouth and blew it.<\/p>\n

“All right,” he cried, “Le’s go! Group one tossin’ the drumstick,
\nhigh an’ zig-zag, group two, test your mouth organs for the
\nRiverfront Shuffle. Promise ’em sugar! Flatfoots this way!
\nOrchestra–let’s have the Florida Drag-Out played as a dirge.”<\/p>\n

There was an unaccustomed sharpness in his voice and the exercises
\nbegan with a mutter of facetious protest.<\/p>\n

With his smoldering grievance directing itself toward Van Vleck,
\nJim was walking here and there among the groups when Hugo tapped
\nhim suddenly on the arm. He looked around. Two participants had
\nwithdrawn from the mouth organ institute–one of them was Van Vleck
\nand he was giving a drink out of his flask to fifteen-year-old
\nRonald Harlan.<\/p>\n

Jim strode across the room. Van Vleck turned defiantly as he came
\nup.<\/p>\n

“All right,” said Jim, trembling with anger, “you know the rules.
\nYou get out!”<\/p>\n

The music died slowly away and there was a sudden drifting over in
\nthe direction of the trouble. Somebody snickered. An atmosphere
\nof anticipation formed instantly. Despite the fact that they all
\nliked Jim their sympathies were divided–Van Vleck was one of them.<\/p>\n

“Get out!” repeated Jim, more quietly.<\/p>\n

“Are you talking to me?” inquired Van Vleck coldly.<\/p>\n

“Yes.”<\/p>\n

“Then you better say ‘sir.'”<\/p>\n

“I wouldn’t say ‘sir’ to anybody that’d give a little boy whisky!
\nYou get out!”<\/p>\n

“Look here!” said Van Vleck furiously. “You’ve butted in once too
\nmuch. I’ve known Ronald since he was two years old. Ask HIM if he
\nwants YOU to tell him what he can do!”<\/p>\n

Ronald Harlan, his dignity offended, grew several years older and
\nlooked haughtily at Jim.<\/p>\n

“Mind your own business!” he said defiantly, albeit a little
\nguiltily.<\/p>\n

“Hear that?” demanded Van Vleck. “My God, can’t you see you’re
\njust a servant? Ronald here’d no more think of asking you to his
\nparty than he would his bootlegger.”<\/p>\n

“Youbettergetout!” cried Jim incoherently.<\/p>\n

Van Vleck did not move. Reaching out suddenly, Jim caught his
\nwrist and jerking it behind his back forced his arm upward until
\nVan Vleck bent forward in agony. Jim leaned and picked the flask
\nfrom the floor with his free hand. Then he signed Hugo to open the
\nhall-door, uttered an abrupt “You STEP!” and marched his helpless
\ncaptive out into the hall where he literally THREW him downstairs,
\nhead over heels bumping from wall to banister, and hurled his flask
\nafter him.<\/p>\n

Then he reentered his academy, closed the door behind him and stood
\nwith his back against it.<\/p>\n

“It–it happens to be a rule that nobody drinks while in this
\nAcademy.” He paused, looking from face to face, finding there
\nsympathy, awe, disapproval, conflicting emotions. They stirred
\nuneasily. He caught Amanthis’s eye, fancied he saw a faint nod of
\nencouragement and, with almost an effort, went on:<\/p>\n

“I just HAD to throw that fella out an’ you-all know it.” Then he
\nconcluded with a transparent affectation of dismissing an
\nunimportant matter–“All right, let’s go! Orchestra–!”<\/p>\n

But no one felt exactly like going on. The spontaneity of the
\nproceedings had been violently disturbed. Someone made a run or
\ntwo on the sliding guitar and several of the girls began whamming
\nat the leer on the punching bags, but Ronald Harlan, followed by
\ntwo other boys, got their hats and went silently out the door.<\/p>\n

Jim and Hugo moved among the groups as usual until a certain
\nmeasure of routine activity was restored but the enthusiasm was
\nunrecapturable and Jim, shaken and discouraged, considered
\ndiscontinuing school for the day. But he dared not. If they went
\nhome in this mood they might not come back. The whole thing
\ndepended on a mood. He must recreate it, he thought frantically–
\nnow, at once!<\/p>\n

But try as he might, there was little response. He himself was not
\nhappy–he could communicate no gaiety to them. They watched his
\nefforts listlessly and, he thought, a little contemptuously.<\/p>\n

Then the tension snapped when the door burst suddenly open,
\nprecipitating a brace of middle-aged and excited women into the
\nroom. No person over twenty-one had ever entered the Academy
\nbefore–but Van Vleck had gone direct to headquarters. The women
\nwere Mrs. Clifton Garneau and Mrs. Poindexter Katzby, two of the
\nmost fashionable and, at present, two of the most flurried women in
\nSouthampton. They were in search of their daughters as, in these
\ndays, so many women continually are.<\/p>\n

The business was over in about three minutes.<\/p>\n

“And as for you!” cried Mrs. Clifton Garneau in an awful voice,
\n“your idea is to run a bar and–and opium den for children! You
\nghastly, horrible, unspeakable man! I can smell morphin fumes!
\nDon’t tell me I can’t smell morphin fumes. I can smell morphin
\nfumes!”<\/p>\n

“And,” bellowed Mrs. Poindexter Katzby, “you have colored men
\naround! You have colored girls hidden! I’m going to the police!”<\/p>\n

Not content with herding their own daughters from the room, they
\ninsisted on the exodus of their friends’ daughters. Jim was not a
\nlittle touched when several of them–including even little Martha
\nKatzby, before she was snatched fiercely away by her mother–came
\nup and shook hands with him. But they were all going, haughtily,
\nregretfully or with shame-faced mutters of apology.<\/p>\n

“Good-by,” he told them wistfully. “In the morning I’ll send you
\nthe money that’s due you.”<\/p>\n

And, after all, they were not sorry to go. Outside, the sound of
\ntheir starting motors, the triumphant put-put of their cut-outs
\ncutting the warm September air, was a jubilant sound–a sound of
\nyouth and hopes high as the sun. Down to the ocean, to roll in the
\nwaves and forget–forget him and their discomfort at his
\nhumiliation.<\/p>\n

They were gone–he was alone with Hugo in the room. He sat down
\nsuddenly with his face in his hands.<\/p>\n

“Hugo,” he said huskily. “They don’t want us up here.”<\/p>\n

“Don’t you care,” said a voice.<\/p>\n

He looked up to see Amanthis standing beside him.<\/p>\n

“You better go with them,” he told her. “You better not be seen
\nhere with me.”<\/p>\n

“Why?”<\/p>\n

“Because you’re in society now and I’m no better to those people
\nthan a servant. You’re in society–I fixed that up. You better go
\nor they won’t invite you to any of their dances.”<\/p>\n

“They won’t anyhow, Jim,” she said gently. “They didn’t invite me
\nto the one tomorrow night.”<\/p>\n

He looked up indignantly.<\/p>\n

“They DIDN’T?”<\/p>\n

She shook her head.<\/p>\n

“I’ll MAKE ’em!” he said wildly. “I’ll tell ’em they got to. I’ll–
\nI’ll–”<\/p>\n

She came close to him with shining eyes.<\/p>\n

“Don’t you mind, Jim,” she soothed him. “Don’t you mind. They
\ndon’t matter. We’ll have a party of our own tomorrow–just you and
\nI.”<\/p>\n

“I come from right good folks,” he said, defiantly. “Pore though.”<\/p>\n

She laid her hand softly on his shoulder.<\/p>\n

“I understand. You’re better than all of them put together, Jim.”<\/p>\n

He got up and went to the window and stared out mournfully into the
\nlate afternoon.<\/p>\n

“I reckon I should have let you sleep in that hammock.”<\/p>\n

She laughed.<\/p>\n

“I’m awfully glad you didn’t.”<\/p>\n

He turned and faced the room, and his face was dark.<\/p>\n

“Sweep up and lock up, Hugo,” he said, his voice trembling. “The
\nsummer’s over and we’re going down home.”<\/p>\n

Autumn had come early. Jim Powell woke next morning to find his
\nroom cool, and the phenomenon of frosted breath in September
\nabsorbed him for a moment to the exclusion of the day before. Then
\nthe lines of his face drooped with unhappiness as he remembered the
\nhumiliation which had washed the cheery glitter from the summer.
\nThere was nothing left for him except to go back where he was
\nknown, where under no provocation were such things said to white
\npeople as had been said to him here.<\/p>\n

After breakfast a measure of his customary light-heartedness
\nreturned. He was a child of the South–brooding was alien to his
\nnature. He could conjure up an injury only a certain number of
\ntimes before it faded into the great vacancy of the past.<\/p>\n

But when, from force of habit, he strolled over to his defunct
\nestablishment, already as obsolete as Snorkey’s late sanitarium,
\nmelancholy again dwelt in his heart. Hugo was there, a specter of
\ndespair, deep in the lugubrious blues amidst his master’s broken
\nhopes.<\/p>\n

Usually a few words from Jim were enough to raise him to an
\ninarticulate ecstasy, but this morning there were no words to
\nutter. For two months Hugo had lived on a pinnacle of which he had
\nnever dreamed. He had enjoyed his work simply and passionately,
\narriving before school hours and lingering long after Mr. Powell’s
\npupils had gone.<\/p>\n

The day dragged toward a not-too-promising night. Amanthis did not
\nappear and Jim wondered forlornly if she had not changed her mind
\nabout dining with him that night. Perhaps it would be better if
\nshe were not seen with them. But then, he reflected dismally, no
\none would see them anyhow–everybody was going to the big dance at
\nthe Harlans’ house.<\/p>\n

When twilight threw unbearable shadows into the school hall he
\nlocked it up for the last time, took down the sign “James Powell;
\nJ. M., Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar,” and went back to his hotel.
\nLooking over his scrawled accounts he saw that there was another
\nmonth’s rent to pay on his school and some bills for windows broken
\nand new equipment that had hardly been used. Jim had lived in
\nstate, and he realized that financially he would have nothing to
\nshow for the summer after all.<\/p>\n

When he had finished he took his new dress-suit out of its box and
\ninspected it, running his hand over the satin of the lapels and
\nlining. This, at least, he owned and perhaps in Tarleton somebody
\nwould ask him to a party where he could wear it.<\/p>\n

“Shucks!” he said scoffingly. “It was just a no account old
\nacademy, anyhow. Some of those boys round the garage down home
\ncould of beat it all hollow.”<\/p>\n

Whistling “Jeanne of Jelly-bean Town” to a not-dispirited rhythm
\nJim encased himself in his first dress-suit and walked downtown.<\/p>\n

“Orchids,” he said to the clerk. He surveyed his purchase with
\nsome pride. He knew that no girl at the Harlan dance would wear
\nanything lovelier than these exotic blossoms that leaned
\nlanguorously backward against green ferns.<\/p>\n

In a taxi-cab, carefully selected to look like a private car, he
\ndrove to Amanthis’s boarding-house. She came down wearing a rose-
\ncolored evening dress into which the orchids melted like colors
\ninto a sunset.<\/p>\n

“I reckon we’ll go to the Casino Hotel,” he suggested, “unless you
\ngot some other place–”<\/p>\n

At their table, looking out over the dark ocean, his mood became a
\ncontended sadness. The windows were shut against the cool but the
\norchestra played “Kalula” and “South Sea Moon” and for awhile, with
\nher young loveliness opposite him, he felt himself to be a romantic
\nparticipant in the life around him. They did not dance, and he was
\nglad–it would have reminded him of that other brighter and more
\nradiant dance to which they could not go.<\/p>\n

After dinner they took a taxi and followed the sandy roads for an
\nhour, glimpsing the now starry ocean through the casual trees.<\/p>\n

“I want to thank you,” she said, “for all you’ve done for me, Jim.”<\/p>\n

“That’s all right–we Powells ought to stick together.”<\/p>\n

“What are you going to do?”<\/p>\n

“I’m going to Tarleton tomorrow.”<\/p>\n

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Are you going to drive down?”<\/p>\n

“I got to. I got to get the car south because I couldn’t get what
\nshe was worth by sellin’ it. You don’t suppose anybody’s stole my
\ncar out of your barn?” he asked in sudden alarm.<\/p>\n

She repressed a smile.<\/p>\n

“No.”<\/p>\n

“I’m sorry about this–about you,” he went on huskily, “and–and I
\nwould like to have gone to just one of their dances. You shouldn’t
\nof stayed with me yesterday. Maybe it kept ’em from asking you.”<\/p>\n

“Jim,” she suggested eagerly, “let’s go and stand outside and
\nlisten to their old music. We don’t care.”<\/p>\n

“They’ll be coming out,” he objected.<\/p>\n

“No, it’s too cold. Besides there’s nothing they could do to you
\nany more than they HAVE done.”<\/p>\n

She gave the chauffeur a direction and a few minutes later they
\nstopped in front of the heavy Georgian beauty of the Madison Harlan
\nhouse whence the windows cast their gaiety in bright patches on the
\nlawn. There was laughter inside and the plaintive wind of
\nfashionable horns, and now and again the slow, mysterious shuffle
\nof dancing feet.<\/p>\n

“Let’s go up close,” whispered Amanthis in an ecstatic trance, “I
\nwant to hear.”<\/p>\n

They walked toward the house, keeping in the shadow of the great
\ntrees. Jim proceeded with awe–suddenly he stopped and seized
\nAmanthis’s arm.<\/p>\n

“Man!” he cried in an excited whisper. “Do you know what that is?”<\/p>\n

“A night watchman?” Amanthis cast a startled look around.<\/p>\n

“It’s Rastus Muldoon’s Band from Savannah! I heard ’em once, and I
\nKNOW. It’s Rastus Muldoon’s Band!”<\/p>\n

They moved closer till they could see first pompadours, then
\nslicked male heads, and high coiffures and finally even bobbed hair
\npressed under black ties. They could distinguish chatter below the
\nceaseless laughter. Two figures appeared on the porch, gulped
\nsomething quickly from flasks and returned inside. But the music
\nhad bewitched Jim Powell. His eyes were fixed and he moved his
\nfeet like a blind man.<\/p>\n

Pressed in close behind some dark bushes they listened. The number
\nended. A breeze from the ocean blew over them and Jim shivered
\nslightly. Then, in a wistful whisper:<\/p>\n

“I’ve always wanted to lead that band. Just once.” His voice grew
\nlistless. “Come on. Let’s go. I reckon I don’t belong around
\nhere.”<\/p>\n

He held out his arm to her but instead of taking it she stepped
\nsuddenly out of the bushes and into a bright patch of light.<\/p>\n

“Come on, Jim,” she said startlingly. “Let’s go inside.”<\/p>\n

“What–?”<\/p>\n

She seized his arm and though he drew back in a sort of stupefied
\nhorror at her boldness she urged him persistently toward the great
\nfront door.<\/p>\n

“Watch out!” he gasped. “Somebody’s coming out of that house and
\nsee us.”<\/p>\n

“No, Jim,” she said firmly. “Nobody’s coming out of that house–
\nbut two people are going in.”<\/p>\n

“Why?” he demanded wildly, standing in full glare of the porte-
\ncochere lamps. “Why?”<\/p>\n

“Why?” she mocked him. “Why, just because this dance happens to be
\ngiven for me.”<\/p>\n

He thought she was mad.<\/p>\n

“Come home before they see us,” he begged her.<\/p>\n

The great doors swung open and a gentleman stepped out on the
\nporch. In horror Jim recognized Mr. Madison Harlan. He made a
\nmovement as though to break away and run. But the man walked down
\nthe steps holding out both hands to Amanthis.<\/p>\n

“Hello at last,” he cried. “Where on earth have you two been?
\nCousin Amanthis–” He kissed her, and turned cordially to Jim.
\n“And for you, Mr. Powell,” he went on, “to make up for being late
\nyou’ve got to promise that for just one number you’re going to lead
\nthat band.”<\/p>\n

New Jersey was warm, all except the part that was under water, and
\nthat mattered only to the fishes. All the tourists who rode
\nthrough the long green miles stopped their cars in front of a
\nspreading old-fashioned country house and looked at the red swing
\non the lawn and the wide, shady porch, and sighed and drove on–
\nswerving a little to avoid a jet-black body-servant in the road.
\nThe body-servant was applying a hammer and nails to a decayed
\nflivver which flaunted from its rear the legend, “Tarleton, Ga.”<\/p>\n

A girl with yellow hair and a warm color to her face was lying in
\nthe hammock looking as though she could fall asleep any moment.
\nNear her sat a gentleman in an extraordinarily tight suit. They
\nhad come down together the day before from the fashionable resort
\nat Southampton.<\/p>\n

“When you first appeared,” she was explaining, “I never thought I’d
\nsee you again so I made that up about the barber and all. As a
\nmatter of fact, I’ve been around quite a bit–with or without
\nbrassknuckles. I’m coming out this autumn.”<\/p>\n

“I reckon I had a lot to learn,” said Jim.<\/p>\n

“And you see,” went on Amanthis, looking at him rather anxiously,
\n“I’d been invited up to Southampton to visit my cousins–and when
\nyou said you were going, I wanted to see what you’d do. I always
\nslept at the Harlans’ but I kept a room at the boarding-house so
\nyou wouldn’t know. The reason I didn’t get there on the right
\ntrain was because I had to come early and warn a lot of people to
\npretend not to know me.”<\/p>\n

Jim got up, nodding his head in comprehension.<\/p>\n

“I reckon I and Hugo had better be movin’ along. We got to make
\nBaltimore by night.”<\/p>\n

“That’s a long way.”<\/p>\n

“I want to sleep south tonight,” he said simply.<\/p>\n

Together they walked down the path and past the idiotic statue of
\nDiana on the lawn.<\/p>\n

“You see,” added Amanthis gently, “you don’t have to be rich up
\nhere in order to–to go around, any more than you do in Georgia–”
\nShe broke off abruptly, “Won’t you come back next year and start
\nanother Academy?”<\/p>\n

“No mamm, not me. That Mr. Harlan told me I could go on with the
\none I had but I told him no.”<\/p>\n

“Haven’t you–didn’t you make money?”<\/p>\n

“No mamm,” he answered. “I got enough of my own income to just get
\nme home. I didn’t have my principal along. One time I was way
\nahead but I was livin’ high and there was my rent an’ apparatus and
\nthose musicians. Besides, there at the end I had to pay what
\nthey’d advanced me for their lessons.”<\/p>\n

“You shouldn’t have done that!” cried Amanthis indignantly.<\/p>\n

“They didn’t want me to, but I told ’em they’d have to take it.”<\/p>\n

He didn’t consider it necessary to mention that Mr. Harlan had
\ntried to present him with a check.<\/p>\n

They reached the automobile just as Hugo drove in his last nail.
\nJim opened a pocket of the door and took from it an unlabeled
\nbottle containing a whitish-yellow liquid.<\/p>\n

“I intended to get you a present,” he told her awkwardly, “but my
\nmoney got away before I could, so I thought I’d send you something
\nfrom Georgia. This here’s just a personal remembrance. It won’t
\ndo for you to drink but maybe after you come out into society you
\nmight want to show some of those young fellas what good old corn
\ntastes like.”<\/p>\n

She took the bottle.<\/p>\n

“Thank you, Jim.”<\/p>\n

“That’s all right.” He turned to Hugo. “I reckon we’ll go along
\nnow. Give the lady the hammer.”<\/p>\n

“Oh, you can have the hammer,” said Amanthis tearfully. “Oh, won’t
\nyou promise to come back?”<\/p>\n

“Someday–maybe.”<\/p>\n

He looked for a moment at her yellow hair and her blue eyes misty
\nwith sleep and tears. Then he got into his car and as his foot
\nfound the clutch his whole manner underwent a change.<\/p>\n

“I’ll say good-by mamm,” he announced with impressive dignity,
\n“we’re goin’ south for the winter.”<\/p>\n

The gesture of his straw hat indicated Palm Beach, St. Augustine,
\nMiami. His body-servant spun the crank, gained his seat and became
\npart of the intense vibration into which the automobile was thrown.<\/p>\n

“South for the winter,” repeated Jim, and then he added softly,
\n“You’re the prettiest girl I ever knew. You go back up there and
\nlie down in that hammock, and sleep–sle-eep–”<\/p>\n

It was almost a lullaby, as he said it. He bowed to her,
\nmagnificently, profoundly, including the whole North in the
\nsplendor of his obeisance–<\/p>\n

Then they were gone down the road in quite a preposterous cloud of
\ndust. Just before they reached the first bend Amanthis saw them
\ncome to a full stop, dismount and shove the top part of the car on
\nto the bottom pan. They took their seats again without looking
\naround. Then the bend–and they were out of sight, leaving only a
\nfaint brown mist to show that they had passed.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t

Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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Public domain content<\/div>