Sam shrugged, but he was flattered. “I’m just a newspaperman.”

“You didn’t hesitate to go off to the war, do your duty. We can always use that kind of gumption.”

“It wasn’t so much.”

“The proper way to measure a man is by his achievements. A man is what he does.”

“I’m just a reporter. All I do is write the stories.”

“You can tell our story to the world. You can look at us with a fresh eye, with a cosmopolitan perspective. What we’re doing here will seem all the more remarkable to a newcomer.”

Sam nodded. Waddell had said the same thing. Well, being a booster never hurt. “People always crave a good story.”

MacRae smiled with his mouth closed. “This is the future down here. Nobody realizes it, but I know it. Land, that’s where the money’s going to be. Cotton’s already on the way out. Same with turpentine.”

The waiter delivered iced tea, and MacRae ordered lunch for them both in clipped tones. “Had two banks fail down here in two years—foolish investments,” he said. “Too liberal with bad debts. I brought in New York money, fixed all that. Issued bonds guaranteed by the city. Guaranteed. Stability, that’s what money likes. Order.”

MacRae lectured on about politics, the stock market, the war in Cuba. “That spig army was no match for white men—you saw that for yourself.”

Sam recalled the chaos of Las Guasimas. The Spanish regulars—the soldiers called them spigs—had shot from the tree line using smokeless powder. It was like fighting ghosts. The Americans were cut down in their ranks. “They got in their licks.”

As the waiter delivered their appetizer of fruit compote, MacRae said, “Down here, the only fly in the ointment is the coloreds. Our city has become their mecca. In Raleigh, we believe it’s deliberate.”

“A plot?”

MacRae devoured his compote. “You’re the reporter, you figure it out. Look at the census—three times as many coloreds as there were ten years ago.”

“But that doesn’t mean—”

“Doesn’t mean what? It’s getting to be a liability, if you know what I mean. Economically speaking. You should hear them in New York. At the Chevy Chase Club in Washington. Holding back development, they say. Who’s going to put their money in a town run by coloreds? Which bank? Who’s going to build a factory here? Who is going to patronize a beach resort surrounded by colored slums? Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against the colored man—in his proper place.”

“I don’t see the harm—”