“I did not answer. And, don’t you know, Joyce burst out crying. Do you reckon Joyce is pregnant? They tells me womens act crazy that way sometimes when they is in the family way. Why should Joyce care if I suck a pork-chop bone in the front window or not? We ain’t got no back window. And I do not see why a man can’t gnaw a bone and look out in the street at the same time. Nobody is looking up specially to see what I am doing. Nobody in the world cares if I gnaw a bone or not in my window—nobody but Joyce.”

“Which should make you happy,” I said, “that somebody cares when you commit a faux pas.”

“What have I committed?” asked Simple.

“A faux pas,” I said. “It really is not proper to sit in the window gnawing on a bone.”

“Is it a crime?” asked Simple.

“It’s not a crime,” I said, “but it is a faux pas.”

“It must be something awful for Joyce not to speak all day,” said Simple. “Write that word down for me, so I can tell her I will not commit it again.”

“Faux pas is a French phrase,” I said.

“Then, now I know how to say ‘gnawing a bone’ in French,’ said Simple.

“Faux pas—boner,” I said.

“Bone,” said Simple, “and there’s one other thing which the Lord made and put on this earth almost as good as a pork-chop bone—that is the neck of a chicken. One reason I very seldom like to eat in restaurants is because you seldom get a chicken neck. If they do serve a neck, it is not proper to eat it, so Joyce says, because you have to suck on the bones. Now, why is it not proper to suck a chicken neck in a restaurant?”

“Because it makes so much noise in public, and therefore is bad manners.”

“Manners is sometimes mighty inconvenient,” stated Simple.

“You may not care about manners,” I said, “but your wife does. Certainly Joyce is a woman to be proud of. She tries to uphold the tone of the Harlem community. One reason why white people don’t want Negroes in their neighborhoods is because they say we lower the tone of the community. Eating bones in the window just isn’t done in high society.”