Into a store in Wilmington sauntered a sable alderman whom the merchant had known from boyhood as "Sam." "What's the matter with Sam?" the merchant asked as Sam stalked out. Soon, Sam stalked back. "Suh, you didn' treat me wid proper respecks." "How, Sam?" "You called me 'Sam,' which my name is Mr. Gary." "You're a d----d fool! There's the door!" Gary had the merchant up in the mayor's court. "What's the trouble?" asked the mayor. "Dis man consulted me." "You ought to feel flattered! What did he do to you?" "He called me 'Sam,' suh." "Ain't that your name?" "My name's Mr. Gary." "Ain't it Sam, too?" "Yessuh, but--" "Well, there ain't any law to compel a man to call another 'Mister.' Case dismissed." "Dar gwi be a law 'bout dat," muttered Sam. Washington was the place of miracles. When Uncle Peter went there, some tricksters told him his wool could be made straight and his colour changed--"Said dee could make it jes lak white folks' ha'r," he informed his mistress mournfully, when he had paid the price--nearly his entire capital--and returned home with flaming red wool. His wife did not know him, or pretended not to, and drove him out of the house. He appealed to his mistress and she made Manda behave herself. "Ole Miss," asked my mother's little handmaiden, "now, I'se free, is I gwi tu'n white lak white folks?" "You must not be ashamed of the skin God gave you, Patsy," said her mistress kindly. "Your skin is all right." "But I druther be white, Ole Miss." And there was something pathetic in the aspiration. Some of the older and more intelligent blacks held their children back from doffing with undignified haste old ways for new. But in most cases, the Simian quality showed itself promptly ascendant. Negroes did things they saw white people do, not because these things were right or seemly, but because white people did them, selecting for imitation trifles in conduct which they thought marked the social dividing line between white and black. As, for instance, they dropped the old sweet "Daddy" and "Mammy" for the dreadful "Pa" and "Ma," or the infantile "Popper" and "Mommer" which white people inflict upon parents. It would be laughable to hear a big buck negro addressing his sire as "Popper." I have seen in a Southern street-car all blacks sitting and all whites standing; have seen a big black woman enter a car and flounce herself down almost into the lap of a white man; have seen white ladies pushed off sidewalks by black men. The new manners of the blacks were painful, revolting, absurd. The freedman's misbehaviour was to be condoned only by pity that accepted his inferiority as excuse. Southerners had taken great pains and pride in teaching their negroes good manners; they wanted them to be courtly and polished, and it must be said for the negroes, they took polish well. It was with keen regret that their old preceptors saw them throw all their fine schooling in etiquette to the winds.