“Ryan,” said Mr. Woolcape, “shut up!”

“Ryan,” said Mrs. Woolcape, “Mr. Kingsblood is not a white man, legally.”

(–-I knew I shouldn’t’ve told!)

“He is one of us, Ryan. He’s just found it out. You’re under pledge of complete secrecy, by the way. He came to us for advice and friendship, and then you go and talk like a Texas sheriff!”

Ryan held out his heavy paw to Neil, smiled like a happy giant, and grunted, “I don’t know whether to be pleased or sympathetic, but I always thought you looked like a good guy, for an officer, and now I understand why. Welcome! Sure, I’ll say nothing, and I’m sorry I shot my mouth off. But in the Army you get to hate all white officers.”

Neil demanded, “Why? Did you really run into much discrimination? It happens I didn’t serve with any colored troops.”

“I’ll tell you, Cap. One camp where I was in the South, the white G.I.‘s had movies or U.S.O. shows every night, in a big theater, and swell rooms for playing cards and writing letters, and all the buses they wanted into town, and dozens of bars. We had movies only once a week, no place to write letters, and we had to walk two miles to a bus, and not enough buses and no bars, and the white M.P.‘s watching you, making you feel like a criminal.

“And our colored officers had no power—they were just token officers, to keep the black vote happy. Colored colonels on shaky old jimcrow cars. One colored captain, in uniform, traveling on official business, was thrown into a civilian jail because there was no phone in the colored waiting-room, so he had to step into the white waiting-room to telephone—to his commanding officer!

“But I did get one thing out of it: a trip to Burma and Java, where I learned what the local boys thought about their being jimcrowed and how glad they’ll be to join us American untouchables against the whole damn world oligarchy of whites!”

Ryan stopped, a stricken giant. “I’ve been hypnotized into another race-tirade! Blame it on Reverend Snood!”

He beamed at Neil as at his best friend, while Neil was appalled at so devastating a hatred of the whites. He wanted to get out of this. It wasn’t his race-problem!

Mrs. Woolcape tried to soothe everybody by purring, “We ran into Mr. Kingsblood at church, this morning, Ryan. He thinks Evan is a fine preacher.”

Ryan grinned. “Any dinner left? I will not be trapped into my Number 5B speech—about all the Negro churches being even deader than the white ones. The young spooks that would have taught Sunday-school a generation ago are working for the N. Double-A C.P., and all the hot ones, that would have become hell-roaring deacons once, have joined the Communist Party. Brewster is a nice guy, but he’s still the favorite of a lot of foot-kissing Uncle Toms, and he’s capable of preaching a sermon where a sinful white man—but smart and rich—is converted by a dumb woolly-head that can’t pay his poll-tax. No, Mum, you shouldn’t have told me the news about Simon Legree, if you wanted me to stick to Christianity and mild manners.”