"Well," resumed the stranger: "You can bet your boots that it would not be that way, if it were left to those in the buildings altogether. No; they would--some of them--get into a fight, knock out a window or two, and bring a pillow from home, to stick in the hole. The first time it rained and blew in at the window, the plaster would fall. Then, others, posing more than anything else, would have a crap game going on and sell whiskey on the side. As for the letters in gold which you observe on the windows, they are Dickson's ideas. Negroes would use chalk naturally. But Dickson won't stand for anything like that. When anything is amiss, he goes at them, as for instance, those stores in the front. Many of the proprietors, when they empty a box, instead of putting it to the rear, would stick it in the front, right up where every passerby could see it. To augment it further, they would allow dust and dead flies to collect. Cobwebs too and perhaps, pile a few old rags up on the top of it. But B.J. goes to them, as I said, invites them across the street, and shows it to them. He takes them up to one end of the building, and walks them to the other, and allows them to see it as the casual observer would. If he doesn't think or consider this sufficient, he takes them up town, and allows their gaze to compare it with the way things are conducted by the first class white people. And then he says: 'Now just look at it! That's nigga's. Nigga's proper. You conduct your place so that every stranger, seeing the city and the sights, when he gets before this building, realizes at one glance that Negroes occupy it.'" Sidney laughed a low, amused laugh. The other continued: "That's why you see things as they are. Our people are not bad to handle. They are, in fact, the most patriotic of all races, and are surely anxious for the success of each other, only they don't know it. They are like a herd without a leader. Dickson's a leader over there." "Ah!" thought Sidney, "that's where it comes in. The race needs leaders!" Again the other was speaking. "Of course, we have a great many that would be leaders, oh, yes, indeed! Over there in that building are many who are pining their lives away. They are confident they are leaders, and are exasperated because they have no following. They hate the people because they are not awake to the fact. They declare, that they have _even been to school and graduated from college and know everything_, which _alone_ should put them at the head. For some peculiar reason, they cannot realize that leaders are born, not made.