“But I don’t want I should ask my friends for the money,” he explained. “So this morning I go by that bank over yonder on the other side of the street and I talk with the bank president, a feller named Howard, about it. But what should I know about banks? Nothing, that’s what. He says to me I should make him a note with indorsements. I asks him what is a note, and what is this here indorsement? So he asks me who do I know in this neighborhood what has plenty money, and I says to him that I know you—that we came over together, greeners, on the same ship from Poland eighteen years ago. And then he fixes up this here piece of paper, and he says to me I should bring it over here and get you to sign your name on the back of it, and then I should bring it back to him and he would right away give me the two thousand dollars I need. So, here I am, Goldberg.” Mr. Goldberg’s voice was husky with emotion as he answered: “Moe,” he said, “honestly for you I am positively ashamed that you should do this thing. Ain’t always we been friends both in the old country and over here? Ain’t always I loved you like a brother? And now when you need some money do you come to me and ask for it, man to man? No, you go to a goy like that Howard. Oy! Oy! for you I hang my head that you should do so! “Listen: I am the one which is going to help you and not some feller in a bank. You get that Howard to sign his name on the back of this paper and then I give you the money!” § 53 The Tools Were Lacking Two traveling men sat at breakfast in the hotel dining room of a South Carolina mill town. To them came a polite negro, soliciting their orders. Said the first: “Bring me grape fruit, coffee with hot milk, corn muffins, bacon and eggs.” “Yassuh,” confirmed the waiter. He addressed the second patron: “Whut’s yourn goin’ be, Cap’n?” “I’ll take the same as my friend here, except that the eggs should be eliminated.” At the sound of that last mysterious word the darky stiffened. “’Scuse me, suh—how’d you say you wanted ’em aigs?” he asked. The white man caught the point. He was by way of being something of a practical joker anyhow. He raised his voice slightly for added emphasis: “I said I wanted them eliminated.” The waiter blinked hard but recovered gallantly. “Yas suh,” he said, and departed for the kitchen. Almost immediately there floated in through the swinging doors which separated kitchen from dining room, a medley of sounds betokening a violent debate between two persons of African antecedents. And then on the heels of this the waiter reappeared, perspiring freely, and returned to where the two white men sat. “Cap’n,” he said, “wouldn’t you des’ ez soon have yore aigs fried? Or mebbe scrambled? We also meks a mouty tasty om’let yere. Folks w’ich tries our om’lets speaks mos’ highly of ’em. Or I mout——” The joker broke in on him: