Matthew walked into the church about noon. Jimmie positively refused to go. “Had all the church I need,” he said. “Besides, got a date!” The services were just beginning. It was a large auditorium, furnished at considerable expense and with some taste. It gave a sense of space and well-being. The voices of the surpliced choir welled up gloriously, and the tones of the minister rolled in full accents.
Matthew particularly noticed the minister. He remembered the preacher at his own home—an old, bent man, outlandish, with blazing eyes and a fire of inspiration and denunciation that moved every auditor. But this man was young—not much older than Matthew—good-looking, intelligent and educated. This service of mingled music and ceremony was attractive, and the sermon—well, the minister did not say much, but he said it well; and if conventionally and with some tricks of the orator, yet he was pleasing and soothing. His Death was an interpretation of Fall—the approach of looming Winter and the test of good resolutions after the bursting Spring and fruitful Summer.
The audience listened contentedly but with no outbursts of enthusiasm. There were a few “amens” from the faithful near the pulpit, but they followed the cadence of the beautiful voice rather than the impact of his ideas. The audience looked comfortable, well fed and well clothed. What were they really thinking? What did the emancipation of the darker races mean to them?
Matthew lingered after the service, and his tall, well-clad figure attracted attention. A deacon welcomed him. He must meet the pastor; and at the door in his silk robe he did meet him. They liked each other at a glance. The minister insisted on his waiting until most of the crowd had passed. Matthew ventured on his queries.
“I’ve just returned from Germany—” he began.
The minister beamed: “Well, well! That’s fine. Hope to take a trip over myself in a year or two. My people here insist. May get a Walker popularity prize. Now what do people over there think of us here? I mean, of us colored folk?”
It was the opening. Matthew explained at length some of the opinions he had heard expressed. The minister was keen with intelligent interest, but just as he was launching out in comment, they were interrupted.
“Brother Johnson, we’re ready now and dinner will be on the table. Mustn’t keep the old lady waiting.”
The speaker was a big, dark man, healthy-looking and pleasant, carefully tailored with every evidence of prosperity. His car and chauffeur were at the curb—a new Cadillac sedan.
The minister hesitated. “My friend, Mr. Towns—just from Germany—” he began.
“Delighted, I’m sure.”
“Yes, this is Brother Jones, president of the Universal Mutual—you’ve heard, I know, of our greatest insurance society. Mr. Towns is just from Germany. I’ll—”
“Bring him along—bring him right along and finish your talk at the table. Always room in the pot for one more. Germany? Well! Well! Are they still licked over there? Been promising the old lady a trip for the last ten years—Germany, France, Italy and all. Like to take in Africa too. But you know how it is—business—” And they were packed into the big car and gliding away.
There was no chance to finish the talk with the young minister. The host started off talking about himself, and nothing could stop him. His home was big and costly—too overdone to be beautiful, but with a good deal of comfort and abundant hospitality. He served a little whiskey to Matthew upstairs with winks and asides about the minister; and then, downstairs and everywhere he talked of himself. He was so naive and so thoroughly interested in the subject that none had the heart to interrupt him, although his wife, as she fidgeted in and out helping the one rather unskillful maid, would say now and then:
“Now, John—stop boasting!”
John would roar good-naturedly—hand around another helping of chicken or ham, pass the vegetables and hot bread, and begin just where he left off: “And there I was without a cent, and four hundred dollars due. I went to the bank—the First National—old man Jones was my people, his grandfather owned mine. ‘Mr. Jones,’ says I, ‘I want five hundred dollars cash today!’
“ ‘Well, John,’ says he, ‘what’s the security?’
“ ‘I’m the security,’ says I, and, sir, he handed me the cash! Well, he wasn’t out nothing. My check in five figures goes at the bank today—don’t it, Reverend?” And so on, and so forth. It was frank, honest self-praise, and his audience hung on his words, although most of them had heard the story a hundred times.
“So you’ve been to Germany? Well, well! Have they got them radicals in jail yet? Italy’s got the dope. Old Moso—what’s his name? Mr. Jones was saying the last time I was in the bank, making my weekly deposit—what was it? About six thousand dollars, as I remember—says he, ‘John, we need a Mosleny right here in America!’ ”
“You’re not against reform, are you, Mr. Jones?”
“No; no, sir, I’m a great reformer. But no radical. No anarchist or Bolshevik. We’ve got to protect property.”
There was an interruption from some late arrivals.
“What boat did you return on?” asked somebody.
Matthew smiled and hesitated.
“The Gigantic,” he said, and he wanted to add, “In the scullery.” Could they stand the joke? He looked up and decided they couldn’t, for he was looking into the eyes of the latest arrival, and she was the prim young person who had tipped him fifteen cents yesterday morning!
“Mr. Towns, who has just returned from a trip to Germany, Miss Gillespie. Miss Gillespie is our new principal of the recently equipped Jones school—named after the President of the First National.”
Matthew smiled, but Miss Gillespie did not. She frankly stared, bowed coldly, and then, after a small mouthful or two, whispered to her neighbor. The neighbor whispered, and then slowly the atmosphere of the table changed. Matthew was embarrassed and amused, and yet how natural it all was—that unfortunate smile of his—that unexplained trip to Germany, and the revelation evidently now running around that he was a Pullman porter. They thought him a liar through and through. It was not simply that he was a railway porter—no, no! Mr. Jones was democratic and all that; but after all one did not make chance porters guests of honor; and Mr. Jones, when the whispering reached him, grew portentously and emphatically silent.
Matthew, now thoroughly upset, rose with the others and made his way straight to the minister.
“Say, I seem to have cut a hog,” he said. The minister smiled wanly and said, “I’m afraid I’m to blame—I—”
“No, no,” said Matthew, and then tersely he told of his rebuff and flight to Europe and his return to “begin again.” “I did not mean really to sail under false colors, and I did come home on the Gigantic. I pared potatoes all the way over.”
The minister burst into a laugh. They shook hands, and with a hurried farewell to a rather gruff host, Matthew slipped away. But he left fifteen cents for Miss Gillespie. Jimmie roared when Matthew told him.