standing around the walls of the room watching an exciting and noisy
game of pool. I walked back and joined this crowd to watch the game,
and principally to get away from the drinking party. The game was
really interesting, the players being quite expert, and the excitement
was heightened by the bets which were being made on the result. At
times the antics and remarks of both players and spectators were
amusing. When, at a critical point, a player missed a shot, he was
deluged, by those financially interested in his making it, with a
flood of epithets synonymous with "chump"; While from the others
he would be jeered by such remarks as "Nigger, dat cue ain't no
hoe-handle." I noticed that among this class of colored men the word
"nigger" was freely used in about the same sense as the word "fellow,"
and sometimes as a term of almost endearment; but I soon learned that
its use was positively and absolutely prohibited to white men.

I stood watching this pool game until I was called by my friends, who
were still in the bar-room, to go upstairs. On the second floor there
were two large rooms. From the hall I looked into the one on the
front. There was a large, round table in the center, at which five
or six men were seated playing poker. The air and conduct here were
greatly in contrast to what I had just seen in the pool-room; these
men were evidently the aristocrats of the place; they were well,
perhaps a bit flashily, dressed and spoke in low modulated voices,
frequently using the word "gentlemen"; in fact, they seemed to be
practicing a sort of Chesterfieldian politeness towards each other. I
was watching these men with a great deal of interest and some degree
of admiration when I was again called by the members of our party, and
I followed them on to the back room. There was a door-keeper at this
room, and we were admitted only after inspection. When we got inside,
I saw a crowd of men of all ages and kinds grouped about an old