“Say, ‘Gene!” he said finally. “I don’t believe he makes that much.”
Eugene thought seriously for a moment.
With George Graves, it was necessary to resume a discussion where it had been left off three days before.
“Who?” he said,
“John Dorsey?
Yes, I think he does,” he added, grinning.
“Not over $2,500, anyway,” said George Graves gloomily.
“No — three thousand, three thousand!” he said, in a choking voice.
George Graves turned to him with a sombre, puzzled smile.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“O you fool!
You damn fool!” gasped Eugene.
“You’ve been thinking about it all this time.”
George Graves laughed sheepishly, with embarrassment, richly.
From the top of the hill at the left, the swelling unction of the Methodist organ welled up remotely from the choir, accompanied by a fruity contralto voice, much in demand at funerals.
Abide with me.
Most musical of mourners, weep again!
George Graves turned and examined the four large black houses, ascending on flat terraces to the church, of Paston Place.
“That’s a good piece of property, ‘Gene,” he said.
“It belongs to the Paston estate.”
Fast falls the even-tide.
Heaves the proud harlot her distended breast, in intricacies of laborious song.
“It will all go to Gil Paston some day,” said George Graves with virtuous regret.
“He’s not worth a damn.”
They had reached the top of the hill.
Church Street ended levelly a block beyond, in the narrow gulch of the avenue.
They saw, with quickened pulse, the little pullulation of the town.
A negro dug tenderly in the round loamy flowerbeds of the Presbyterian churchyard, bending now and then to thrust his thick fingers gently in about the roots.
The old church, with its sharp steeple, rotted slowly, decently, prosperously, like a good man’s life, down into its wet lichened brick.
Eugene looked gratefully, with a second’s pride, at its dark decorum, its solid Scotch breeding.
“I’m a Presbyterian,” he said.
“What are you?”
“An Episcopalian, when I go,” said George Graves with irreverent laughter.
“To hell with these Methodists!” Eugene said with an elegant, disdainful face.
“They’re too damn common for us.”
God in three persons — blessed Trinity.
“Brother Graves,” he continued, in a fat well-oiled voice,
“I didn’t see you at prayer-meeting Wednesday night.
Where in Jesus’ name were you?”
With his open palm he struck George Graves violently between his meaty shoulders.
George Graves staggered drunkenly with high resounding laughter.
“Why, Brother Gant,” said he, “I had a little appointment with one of the Good Sisters, out in the cow-shed.”
Eugene gathered a telephone pole into his wild embrace, and threw one leg erotically over its second foot-wedge.
George Graves leaned his heavy shoulder against it, his great limbs drained with laughter.
There was a hot blast of steamy air from the Appalachian Laundry across the street and, as the door from the office of the washroom opened, they had a moment’s glimpse of negresses plunging their wet arms into the liquefaction of their clothes.
George Graves dried his eyes.
Laughing wearily, they crossed over.
“We oughtn’t to talk like that, ‘Gene,” said George Graves reproachfully.
“Sure enough!
It’s not right.”