Dazzle Zenor was certainly the sort of woman a colored man would naturally select to teach him the art of love. She was slim and graceful, neat as a new pin and beautifully dressed; she had fine Moorish features, and smiled with beautiful teeth and did flattering things with her eyes, for Dazzle was a real actress.
“Dis here cullud gen’leman is got de love-bug, Dazzle,” Skeeter explained. “He wants to cote a gal so dat he kin marry her real prompt, an’ he don’t know how it is did. I tole him you wus a female actor an’ you could teach him how to love wid one lesson.”
“How much kin you pay?” Dazzle asked, looking at Tick.
“How much do it cost?” Tick asked cautiously.
“How many money is you got?” Dazzle inquired.
“Dat’s a plenty,” Dazzle laughed as she folded the bill and slipped it into the palm of her kid glove. Then she looked Tick over as if he were a horse she was thinking of buying. After a while she asked:
“Whut does you know about makin’ love to a woman, Tick?”
“Ain’t you never kissed no womens?” Dazzle asked incredulously.
“Dey batted me over de head wid de fust thing whut come handy. De las’ one broke a puffeckly good settin’-chair on my noodle.”
“Ain’t you never hugged no womens?” Dazzle asked.
“I can’t perzackly call it huggin’,” Tick explained. “Quick as I grab ’em, dey squall an’ fight an’ ack like dey wus ag’in it.”
Dazzle turned to Skeeter with an amazed question:
Skeeter was evidently stricken dumb before such complete inexperience and such colossal ignorance.
Tick wadded his hat into a tight ball and waited while Dazzle thought out a course of instruction.
“All right, Ticky,” she said, at last. “I’ll set here on dis bench an’ you come a-courtin’ me. Do de very best you knows how, an’ Skeeter kin stan’ off on one side an’ suggest improvements on de lesson.”
Tick fumbled with his hat, and breathed like a choking horse.
Skeeter stood like a motion-picture director looking at the actors in this drama of love.
“Whu--whut muss I do fust?” Tick growled.
Tick sat down beside Dazzle, and started to kiss her. Then he backed away, and took up his position at the far end of the bench, looking at her with extreme embarrassment.
“Aw, shuckins!” Skeeter howled. “You kissed at dat purdy gal like a sick sheep lickin’ salt! Don’t be skeart you’ll git too much--she ain’t p’ison--git yo’ five dollar’s wuth!”