“Dah, bless Gawd!” Felo exclaimed with enthusiasm. “Unc’ Nat, you sho spoke somh’n dat time.” “W’at you know ’bout wimmin ways, ole ugly Felo?” Nookie inquired indignantly. “Is you done come to be a big jedge, like all de yuther hypocrite niggers w’at spen’ all dey time livin’ ’munks de w’ite folks?... Lookin’ down scawnful on yo’ own color ways; tryin’ to make us nigger people pattun aft’ de w’ite folks?” “Anybody heard me say a word ’bout w’ite folks bein’ diffunt?” Felo demanded, looking about from one to the other. “Far as I bin able to ’zern, dey ways resemble each-another. Only de w’ite folks ways mo’ seecut.... Dey thinks a heap ’bout w’at dey doin’. Dey does it on de sly. ’Tain’ nobody business.... But you never see ’um lose dey self-respec’. Dey puts on a front, an’ dey all gits by. Dey hides dey looseness, an’ you gotta give ’um praise. But look at de cullud folks. How dey do?... Dey ain’ stop to bother ’bout self-respec’; w’at people goin’ think. Dey jus’ cuts loose.... Dey natchal as de cattle an’ fowls’ an’ things. An’ _Gawd_ de only man to tell if dey doin’ somh’n wrong.” Apprehensive that an unpleasant dispute was under way, Susan said to them: “Y’all better stop talkin’ to one-’nother so plain. Firs’ thing you know, you goin’ be sorry.” Almost immediately she became aware that her fears were needless; for she heard outside the sound of voices mingled with the drone of weird music played on a comb covered with tissue paper; and she knew that other members had arrived. The new-comers were Carmelite and Soongy, two pleasant-looking, neatly-dressed young colored women; accompanied by a light brown-skin boy about fourteen years old, known to every one as Dink, the comb-player. He was a merry-faced, accommodating young troubadour, willing to lend his talent on any chance occasion; making his ravishing music on the comb for the sheer love of the thing itself, and the simple reward of a “plate full o’ vittuls an’ a cup o’ somh’n-’nother to drink.” Soongy was his aunt, and was extravagantly proud of his musical ability. “Dink ain’ no master min’ by no means”; she would say, when speaking of his attainments, “but he sho got it all in his head. An’ nobody ain’ learned him, either.” Dink’s repertoire was a remarkable one. It included all the “himes” and mellows and “Dr. Watts” sung by the Baptist and Methodist congregations, reaching from “Wes’wego ferry landin’, clean down de coas’ to Gritny in de Eas’ Green”; all the “ballets” and “sinful songs” disseminated by “backsliders” and “evil-workers”; and many haunting fragments of “make-up songs,” the invention of Dick’s harmonious mind.