“Yes,” said Simple. “Anyhow, hard as I try, daddy-o, I really do not like concert singers. They are always singing in some foreign language. I leaned over the table and asked Joyce what the song meant, but she snaps, ‘It is not important what it means. Just listen to that high C above E’. I listened fluently, but it was Dutch to me.

“I said, ‘Joyce, what is she saying?’

“Joyce said, ‘Please don’t show your ignorance here.’

“I said, ‘I am trying to hide it. But what in God’s name is she singing about?’

“Joyce said, ‘It’s in Italian. Shsss-ss-s! For my sake, kindly act like you’ve got some culture, even if you ain’t.’

“I said, ‘I don’t see why culture can’t be in English.’

“Joyce said, ‘Don’t embarrass me. You ought to be ashamed.’

“I said, ‘I am not ashamed, neither am I Italian, and I do not understand their language.’ We would have had a quarrel right then and there had not that woman got through and set down. Then a man from the Urban League, a lady from the Daughter Elks, and a gentleman librarian all got up and paid tributes to the guest of honor. And he bowed and smiled and frowned and et because he could not eat fast, his teeth being about gone, so he still had a chicken wing in his hand when the program started. Finally came the great moment.

“‘Shsss-ss-s-ssh!’ says Joyce.

“‘I ain’t said a word,’ I said, ‘except that I sure wish I could smoke in here.’

“‘Hush,’ says Joyce, ‘this is a cultural event and no smoking is allowed. We are going to hear the guest of honor.’

“You should have seen Mrs. Sadie Maxwell-Reeves. She rose to her full heights. She is built like a pyramid upside down anyhow. But her head was all done fresh and shining with a hair-rocker roached up high in front, and a advertised-in-Ebony snood down the back, also a small bunch of green feathers behind her ear and genuine diamonds on her hand. Man, she had bosom-glasses that pulled out and snapped back when she read her notes. But she did not need to read no notes, she were so full of her subject.

“If words was flowers and he was dead, that old man could not have had more boquets put on him if he’d had a funeral at Delaney’s where big shots get laid out. Roses, jonquils, pea-lilies, forget-me-nots, pansies, dogwoods, African daisies, also hydrangeas fell all over his head out of that lady toastmistress’s mouth. He were sprayed with the perfume of eloquence. He were welcomed and rewelcomed to that Three-Dollar Banquet and given the red plush carpet. Before that lady got through, I clean forgot I wanted to smoke. I were spellbound, smothered in it myself.