Old Eph’s favorite stand was on Tremont street, just outside the subway kiosk, where every foot in Boston soon or late must pass. He appeared here about dusk every evening, when the afternoon rush was over; and he squatted, tailor fashion, on crossed legs, and hugged his banjo to his ragged breast, and picked at it and crooned and shouted his old melodies so long as there were any to listen. He was a cheerful old fellow, with the pathetic cheerfulness of the negro. When coins were tossed to him, he had a nimble trick of whisking his banjo bottom side up, catching the contribution in this improvised receptacle, flipping it into the air and pocketing it without interrupting his music. Each time he did this, his fingers returned to the strings with a sweep and a strumming that suggested the triumphant notes of trumpets. There was an ape-like cast to his head; and his long arms and limber old fingers had the uncanny dexterity of a monkey. Pretty girls, watching him, sometimes said shiveringly to their escorts: “He hardly seems human--squatting there....” Old Eph always heard. His ears were unnaturally keen, attuned to the murmur of the crowds. And he used to answer them, chanting his reply in time with the tune he happened at the moment to be playing. Thus: “Don’ you cry, ma Honey ...” might become: “‘Don’ you call me monkey, ‘Don’ you call me monk ... ‘Eph ain’ gwine tuh lak it, and hit ain’t so....’” And then he would go on with the song, calm and undisturbed ... “‘All de little black babies, sleepin’ on de flo’ ... ‘Mammy only lubs her own.’” When a particularly liberal coin came his way, he gave thanks in the midst of his song. Thus: “‘I’m comin’; I’m comin’; and my head is thank ye ma’am ... ‘I hear dem darky voices calling: Yes mum-ma’am.’” He never hesitated to take liberties with the English language in order to preserve the meter; for he had the keen sense of rhythm that characterizes his race. Also, for all the ravages of age, his voice was sweet and true. He sang endlessly, so that his songs were half medley, half monologue; and his banjo would all but speak for him. No one ever saw Eph about the streets in the day time. He appeared at dusk; and it was known that he sometimes remained at his post, singing and picking at his banjo, long after the ways were empty of pedestrians. Sometimes, in those middle hours between night and morning, when there was no one near, the songs he sang became ineffably sad and mournful; he crooned them, under his breath, to the banjo that he hugged against his breast, and his sweet old voice was like a low lament. Once Walter Ragan, the patrolman on the beat, passed at four in the morning of a late fall day and heard Eph singing, over and over.... “Tramp, tramp, tramp! De boys is marching....” Eph repeated this song so long and so sorrowfully that Ragan came up quietly behind him and asked: “What’s the matter, Eph?”