In silence the meal was finished. Then the woman steadied herself a moment with hands against a table, and, without a word to Maria, walked quickly, with an almost haughty carriage, from the room. She crossed the narrow drive with a decisive tread, opened the door of Porgy’s room, entered, and closed the door behind her. § It was late afternoon. Serena Robbins entered the court, paused at Porgy’s door, and gave a sharp rap on the weathered panel. The door was opened by a woman. The visitor looked through her, and spoke directly to Porgy, who sat within. “I gots good news,” she announced. “I done tuh see my w’ite folks ’bout Peter; an’ dey say dey gots a frien’ who is a lawyer, an’ he kin git um out. I tell um tuh sen’ um tuh see you ’bout um, ’cause yuh gots so much sense when yuh talks tuh w’ite folks.” Having delivered her message, Serena turned a broad back upon the woman who stood silently in the doorway, and with the bearing of an arbiter of social destinies, strode to her corner of the court. Across the drive, Maria, vast and moist, hung over her stove in a far corner of her cook-shop. Several negroes sat at the little tables, eating their early suppers, laughing and chaffing. “Yuh sho got good-lookin’ white gals in dis town,” drawled a slender young octoroon. He was attired in sky-blue, peg-top trousers, yellow spats, and in the center of a scarlet bow-tie gleamed an immense paste horseshoe. “Do listen tuh Sportin’ Life!” said a black, loutish buck admiringly. “Ef he ain’t lookin’ at de rollin’ bones, he always gots he eye on de women.” Maria’s heavy tread shook the room as she crossed and stood, with arms akimbo, scowling down at her iridescent guest. The man looked up, lowered his eyes quickly, and shifted uneasily in his chair. “Nigger!” she finally shot at him, and the impact almost jarred him from his chair. “I jus’ tryin’ ter figger out wedder I bettuh kill yuh decent now, wid yuh frien’s about yuh; or leabe you fuh de w’ite gentlemens tuh hang attuh a while.” “Come now, old lady, don’t talk like dese old-fashioned lamp-oil niggers what have had no adwantage. Why, up in New York, where I been waitin’ in a hotel--” But he got no further. “Noo Yo’k,” she shouted. “Don’t yuh try any Noo Yo’kin’ aroun’ dis town. Ef I had my way, I’d go down tuh dat Noo Yo’k boat, an’ take ebbery Gawd’s nigger what come up de gang plank wid er Joseph coat on he back an’ a glass headlight on he buzzom and drap um tuh de catfish befo’ he foot hit decent groun’! Yas; my belly fair ache wid dis Noo Yo’k talk. De fus t’ing dat dem nigger fuhgit is dat dem is nigger. Den dem comes tuh dese decent country mens, and fills um full ob talk wut put money in de funeral ondehtakuh pocket.” Breathless, she closed her arraignment by bringing a fist the size of a ham down upon the table with such force that her victim leapt from his chair and extended an ingratiating hand toward her. “Dat’ all right, Auntie. Le’s you an’ me be frien’.”