“But this is sunthin’ entirely different. There hain’t no earthly possibility that this nigger question can affect us one way or another; there hain’t no way for it to,” sez he. Sez I, “Hain’t you got a heart, Josiah Allen, to help others who are in trouble and jeopardy, and don’t know which way to turn to get the right help?” “I have got a heart to help Number One—to help Josiah Allen—and I have got a heart to mind my own bizness, and I am a goin’ to.” And he passed over his cup agin for the third cup of coffee. That man drinks too much coffee—it hain’t good for him; but I can’t help it; and my coffee _is_ delicious anyway, and the cream is thick and sweet, and he loves it _too_ well, as I say; but as good as it wuz, it couldn’t draw his mind from his own idees. Sez he agin, in louder axents and more decideder ones: “There hain’t no possible way that we can be affected by the Race Problem one way or another.” And I begun to feel myself a growin’ real eloquent. I don’t love to get so eloquent that time of the day, but mebby it wuz the effect of that gauldin’ tone of hisen. Anyway, I sez: “It is impossible to guard one’s self aginst the effects of a mighty wrong. “The links that weld humanity together are such curius ones, wove out of so many strands, visible and invisible, strong as steel and relentless as death, and that reach out so fur, so fur on every side, how can any one tell whether a great strain and voyalence inflicted on the lowest link of that chain may not shatter and corrode and destroy the very highest and brightest one? “The hull chain of humanity is held in one hand, and we are bein’ pulled along by that mighty, inexorable hand into we know not what. “The link that shines the brightest to-day may be rusty to-morrow, the strongest one may be torn in pieces by some sudden and voyalent wrench, or some slow, wearin’ strain comin’ from beneath. “How can we tell, and how dast we say that a evil that affects one class of humanity can never reach us—how do we know it won’t?” “Because we do know it!” hollered Josiah. “I know it is jest as I tell you, that that dumb nigger question can’t never touch us anyway. I’ve said it, and I’ll stick to it.” But I still felt real eloquent, and I went right on and drew some metafors, as I most always do when I get to goin’, I can’t seem to help it. Sez I, “The temperate man may say the liquor question will never affect him, but some day he gathers his sober children about him, and finds one is missin’—the pet of them all driven down in the street to death by a drunken driver. “A Christian woman sez, ‘This question of Social Purity cannot affect me, for I am pure and come from a pure ancestry.’ But there comes a day when she finds the lamb of her flock overtaken and slain by this evil she thought could never touch her.