“But--but--why didn’t you act natural?” Rouke spluttered.
“Dat ain’t no way to do, boss,” Figger declared. “When us niggers gits our tintypes koodaked us is got to show bofe foots, bofe hands, bofe eyes, and bofe ears. We don’t take no sideways picture. Ef us don’t show all of ourse’ves, de niggers will figger dat one eye done got gouged out, or one ear done been cut off. Yes, suh, dat’s right.”
“Shore!” a chorus of negro voices answered. “Us ain’t gwine hab our pictures took no way but straight on!”
In hopeless impotence, Shirley Rouke turned to Peter Pellet for aid and comfort, and beheld that artist doubled up, helpless with laughter.
“What’s the matter with you, you blue-mass pill?” Rouke bawled.
“Oh, lordy, Roukey,” Peter howled. “That’s the funniest stunt ever pulled before a camera! It’ll get a laugh from Broadway to the Chinese Yellow Sea. Buck up, and go on with the show!”
“All right! Get ready, now! Pour the wine in those glasses, Sudds! Ready! Action! Go!”
The steady click of the camera amid a breathless silence; then Rouke’s command:
He bounced into the picture with a perfect imitation of a she-bear approaching a man who was holding her squealing cub by the ear. Sour bad been too realistic in his acting, and Skeeter was jealous. He grabbed Sudds by the nose, shook him as a dog shakes a rat, grabbed the wine bottle and broke it over Sour’s head, then administered a punch on the jaw which sent Sudds reeling out of his chair to the ground.
Then Sudds came back. Seizing Skeeter by the nape of the neck, he pounded his head against the table until it rattled like a snare drum. Skeeter twisted and squealed until he managed to land a mighty kick in the pit of Sour’s stomach, then he sprang up, grabbed a chair and proceeded to use it as a club.
Sour seized the little deal-table, poised it above his head like a shield, and pranced around, receiving Skeeter’s frenzied blows on the top of the table instead of the top of his head.
Lalla Cordona backed slowly away from the fray, her shapely, beautiful hands clasped over her heaving breast, her breath coming in quick gasps, her face expressing emotions which alternated between fear and hope and horror and despair.
Then she swept forward with a grace and power simply majestic in its action, held out her hands to the furious men and spoke one word: