“—hysterian speak,” continued Simple, “and he laid our Negro race low. He said we was misbred, misread, and misled, also losing our time good-timing. Instead of time-taking and money-making, we are jazz-shaking. Oh, he enjoyed his self at the expense of the colored race—and him black as me. He really delivered a lecture—in which, no doubt, there is some truth.”

“Constructive criticism, I gather—a sort of tearing down in order to build up.”

“He tore us down good,” said Simple. “Joyce come out saying to me, her husband, that he had really got my number. I said, ‘Baby, he did not miss you, neither.’ But Joyce did not consider herself included in the bad things he said.

“She come telling me on the way home by subway, ‘Jess Semple, I have been pursuing culture since my childhood. But you, when I first met you, all you did was drape yourself over some beer bar and argue with the barflies. The higher things of life do not come out of a licker trough.’

“I replied, ‘But, Joyce, how come culture has got to be so dry?’

“She answers me back, ‘How come your gullet has got to be so wet? You are sitting in this subway right now looking like you would like to have a beer.’

“‘Solid!’ I said. ‘I would. How did you guess it?’

“‘Married to you for three years, I can read your mind,’ said Joyce. ‘We’ll buy a couple of cans to take home. I might even drink one myself.’

“‘Joyce, baby,’ I said, ‘in that case, let’s buy three cans.’

“Joyce says, ‘Remember the budget, Jess.’

“I says, ‘Honey, you done busted the budget going to that lecture program which cost One Dollar a head, also we put some small change in the collection to help Negroes get ahead.’

“‘Small change?’ says Joyce, ‘I put a dollar.’

“‘Then our budget is busted real good,’ I said, ‘so we might as well dent it some more. Let’s get six cans of beer.’

“‘All right,’ says Joyce, ‘go ahead, drink yourself to the dogs—instead of saving for that house we want to buy!’

“‘Six cans of beer would not pay for even the bottom front step,’ I said. ‘But they would lift my spirits this evening. That Negro high-speaking doctor done tore my spirits down. I did not know before that the colored race was so misled, misread, and misbred. According to him there is hardly a pure black man left. But I was setting in the back, so I guess he did not see me.’

“‘Had you not had to go to sleep in the big chair after dinner,’ says Joyce, ‘we would have been there on time and had seats up front.’

“‘I were near enough to that joker,’ I said. ‘Loud as he could holler, we did not need to set no closer. And he certainly were nothing to look at!’