but that is neither here nor there.he will commit in one meal every betise that a senllion fresh from the plow-tail is capable of,and he will continue to repeat those faults.he is as complete a heavy-footed,uncomprehending,bungle-fisted fool as any mem-sahib in the east ever took into her establishment.but he is according to law a free and independent citizen--consequently above reproof or criticism.he,and he alone,in this insane city,will wait at table (the chinaman doesn't count).
he is untrained,inept,but he will fill the place and draw the pay.now,god and his father's fate made him intellectually inferior to the oriental.he insists on pretending that he serves tables by accident--as a sort of amusement.he wishes you to understand this little fact.you wish to eat your meals,and,if possible,to have them properly served.he is a big,black,vain baby and a man rolled into one.
a colored gentleman who insisted on getting me pie when i wanted something else,demanded information about india.i gave him some facts about wages.
"oh,hell!"said he,cheerfully,"that wouldn't keep me in cigars for a month."then he fawned on me for a ten-cent piece.later he took it upon himself to pity the natives of india."heathens,"he called them--this woolly one,whose race has been the butt of every comedy on the native stage since the beginning.and i turned and saw by the head upon his shoulders that he was a yoruba man,if there be any truth in ethnological castes.he did his thinking in english,but he was a yoruba negro,and the race type had remained the same through-out his generations.and the room was full of other races--some that looked exactly like gallas (but the trade was never recruited from that side of africa),some duplicates of cameroon heads,and some kroomen,if ever kroomen wore evening dress.
the american does not consider little matters of descent,though by this time he ought to know all about "damnable heredity."as a general rule he keeps himself very far from the negro,and says things about him that are not pretty.there are six million negroes,more or less,in the states,and they are increasing.