Absurd rumors had begun early to circulate among the darker brethren. In all negrodom the conviction became general that this individual detailed catechising and house-branding was really a government scheme to get lists of persons due for deportation, either for lack of work as the canal neared completion or for looseness of marital relations. Hardly a tenement did I enter but laughing voices bandied back and forth and there echoed and reechoed through the building such remarks as: "Well, dey gon' sen' us home, Penelope," or "Yo an' Percival better hurry up an' git married, Ambrosia." Several dusky females regularly ran away whenever I approached; one at least I came a-seeking in vain nine times, and found her the tenth behind a garbage barrel. Many fancied the secret marks on the "enumerated" tag--date, and initials of the enumerator--were intimately concerned with their fate. So strong is the fear of the law imbued by the Zone Police that they dared not tear down the dreaded placard, but would sometimes sit staring at it for hours striving to penetrate its secret or exorcise away its power of evil, and now and then some bolder spirit ventured out--at midnight--with a pencil and put tails and extra flourishes on the penciled letters in the hope of disguising them against the fatal day. Except for the chaos of nationalities and types on the Zone, enumerating would have become more than monotonous. But the enumerated took care to break the monotony. There was the wealth of nomenclature for instance. What more striking than a shining-black waiter strutting proudly about under the name of Levi McCarthy? There was no necessity of asking Beresford Plantaganet if he were a British subject. Naturally the mother of Hazarmaneth Cumberbath Smith, baptized that very week, had to claw out the family Bible from among the bed-clothes and look up the name on the fly-leaf. To the enumerator, who must set down concise and exact answers to each of his questions, fifty or sixty daily scenes and replies something like these were delightful; Enumerator (sitting down on the edge of a barrel): "How many living in this room?" Explosive laughter from the buxom, jet-black woman addressed. Enumerator (on a venture): "What's the man's name?" "He name 'Rasmus Iggleston." "What's his metal-check number?" "Lard, mahster, ah don' know he check number." "Haven't you a commissary-book with it in?" "Lard no, mah love, commissary-book him feeneesh already befo' las' week." "Is he a Jamaican?" "No, him a Mont-rat, mahster." (Monsterratian.) "What color is he?" "Te! He! Wha' fo' yo as' all dem questions, mahster?" "For instance." "Oh, him jes' a pitch darker'n me." "How old is he?" (Loud laughter) "Law', ah don' know how ol' him are!" "Well, about how old?" "Oh, him a ripe man, mah love, him a prime man." "Is he older than you?" "Oh, yes, him older 'n me." "And how old are you?" "Te! He! 'Deed ah don' know how ol' ah is; ah gone los' mah age paper."