All this time he is classifying you. He really located you when you
entered the car, summing you up as you sought out your berth number.
At his first glance he had divined your station in life by your
clothes, your personal refinement, by your carpet-bag, and your
familiarity with travel by the way you took your seat. The shoes he
will black for you in the still small hours of the morning, when he
has time to think, will give him any other points he requires.
If they are patched or half-soled, no amount of diamond shirt studs or
watch chain worn with them will save your respectability. If you
should reverse your cuffs before him, or imbibe your stimulants from a
black bottle which you carry in your inside pocket instead of a silver
flask concealed in your bag, no amount of fees will gain for you his
unqualified respect. If none of these delinquencies can be laid to
your account, and he is still in doubt, he waits until you open your
bag.
Should the first rapid glance betray your cigars packed next to your
shoes, or the handle of a toothbrush thrust into the sponge-bag, or
some other such violation of his standard, your status is fixed; he
knows you. And he does all this while he is bowing and smiling,
bringing you a pillow for your head, opening a transom, or putting up
wire screens to save you from draughts and dust, and all without any
apparent distinction between you and your fellow passengers.
If you swear at him, he will not answer back, and if you smite him, he
will nine times out of ten turn to you the other cheek. He does all
this because his skin is black, and yours is white, and because he is
the servant and representative of a corporation who will see him
righted, and who are accustomed to hear complaints. Above all, he will
do so because of the wife and children or mother at home in need of
the money he earns, and destined to suffer if he lose his place.
He has had, too, if you did but know it, a life as interesting,
perhaps, as any of your acquaintances. It is quite within the
possibilities that he has been once or twice to Spain, Italy, or
Egypt, depending on the movements of the master he served; that he can
speak a dozen words or more of Spanish or Italian or pigeon English,
and oftener than not the best English of our public schools; can make
an omelette, sew on a button, or clean a gun, and that in an emergency
or accident (I know of two who lost their lives to save their
passengers) he can be the most helpful, the most loyal, the most human
serving man and friend you can find the world over.
If you are selfishly intent on your own affairs, and look upon his
civility and his desire to please you as included in the price of your
berth or seat, and decide that any extra service he may render you is
canceled by the miserable twenty-five cents which you give him, you
will know none of these accomplishments nor the spirit that rules
them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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