“Yo' don' know--no one kin guess or comperhen'--what des bein' white would mean ter me! Lawd! Lawd!” he says, his voice soft-spoken, but more eager than ever as he went on, and pleading something pitiful to hear, “des think of all de Caucasian blood in me! Gawd knows de nights er my youth I'se laid awake twell de dawn come red in de Eas' a-cryin' out ter Him only fo' ter be white! _Des ter be white_! Don' min' dem black, black niggers dar--don' think er _dem_--dey ain't wuth nothin' nor fitten fo' no fate but what dey got--But me! What's done kep' me from gwine ter de top but dat one thing: _I wasn't white!_ Hit air too late now--too late fo' dem ambitions I done trifle with an' shove behin' me--hit's too late fo' dat! But ef I was des ter git one li'l year o' hit--_one li'l year o' bein' white!_--befo' I died--” And he went on like that, shaking and stuttering there in the road, like a fit had struck him, crazy as a loon. But he got hold of himself enough to quit talking, in a minute, and his cunning come back to him before he was through trembling. Then the doctor says slow and even, but not severe: “You go back to your people now, bishop, and tell them they've made a mistake about me. And if you can, undo the harm you've done with this Messiah business. As far as this stuff of mine is concerned, there's none of it for you nor for any other negro. You tell them that. There's none of it been sold yet--and there never will be.” Then we turned away and left him standing there in the road, still with his hat off and his face working. Walking back toward the little tavern the doctor says: “Danny, this is the end of this game. These people down here and that half-cracked, half-crooked old bishop have made me see a few things about the Afro-American brother. It wasn't a good scheme in the first place. And this wasn't the place to start it going, anyhow--I should have tried the niggers in the big towns. But I'm out of it now, and I'm glad of it. What we want to do is to get away from here to-morrow--go back to Atlanta and fix up a scheme to rob some widows and orphans, or something half-way respectable like that.” Well, I drew a long breath. I was with Doctor Kirby in everything he done, fur he was my friend, and I didn't intend to quit him. But I was glad we was out of this, and hadn't sold none of that dope. We both felt better because we hadn't. All them millions we was going to make--shucks! We didn't neither one of us give a dern about them getting away from us. All we wanted was jest to get away from there and not get mixed up with no nigger problems any more. We eat supper, and we set around a while, and we went to bed purty middling early, so as to get a good start in the morning.