“It were like this,” Simple began. “After dinner, I were setting in my front window gnawing on a pork-chop bone, observing Harlem, and I had just got down to the juicy part, when Joyce says, ‘Jesse B., why did you take that bone away from the table?’

“I say, ‘Baby, to gnaw on.’

“‘But not in the front window,’ says Joyce.

“‘It’s my window,’ I said.

“‘It’s also mine,’ says Joyce, ‘and I do not wish bone-gnawing there in public for the world to see.’

“‘Not even in my own window?’

“‘Most especially in our own window,’ says Joyce. ‘What you are doing is real down-homish—leaning from the window with a meat bone in your hand. You are my husband and I do not wish everybody passing by the street to see you. Eat at the table, and stop eating when you get up. Do not, please, carry bones to the window.’

“‘Aw, Joyce,’ I says.

“‘Aw, Joyce nothing,’ says she. ‘You do not see me leaning from a window with a bone in my hand.’

“‘You’re a lady,’ I says.

“‘And I hope you are a gentleman,’ says Joyce.

“‘People eat hot dogs in public in the Yankee Stadium,’ I says, ‘and corn on the cob at Coney Island. So why can’t I gnaw a bone in my own house?’

“‘Inside the house, yes,’ says Joyce. ‘But, Jesse B., listen to me! Please do not gnaw that bone in the window! Please.’

“Which, when I saw she were so serious I asked her, ‘why?’” said Simple. “And you know what Joyce told me? ‘Because Emily Post says “DON’T.”’

“‘Baby,’ I says, ‘Emily Post were white. Also, I expect, rich. That woman had plenty of time to gnaw her bones at the table. Me, I work. When I get home, I want to look out in the street before dark and see what is going on. Since I’m married, I don’t get out much. At least, honey, let me look out.’

“‘Look out all you want to,’ says Joyce, ‘but not with a bone in your hand. That is most inelegant.’

“‘Inelegant, hell!’ I says, and I sat right there. ‘Just you try to get this here bone away from me.’

“‘I want Negroes to learn etiquette,’ said Joyce. ‘Bone-gnawing is not etiquette—at least, not in public.’