niggah's naps. You ain't been practisin' lately, has you?" came from the
back of the shop, where a grinning negro was scraping a fellow's face.

"Oh, yes, you 're done with burr-heads, are you? But burr-heads are good
enough fu' you now."

"I think," the proprietor resumed, "that I hyeahed you say you was n't
fond o' grape pickin'. Well, Josy, my son, I would n't begin it now,
'specially as anothah kin' o' pickin' seems to run in yo' fambly."

Joe Hamilton never knew how he got out of that shop. He only knew that
he found himself upon the street outside the door, tears of anger and
shame in his eyes, and the laughs and taunts of his tormentors still
ringing in his ears.

It was cruel, of course it was cruel. It was brutal. But only he knew
how just it had been. In his moments of pride he had said all those
things, half in fun and half in earnest, and he began to wonder how he
could have been so many kinds of a fool for so long without realising
it.

He had not the heart to seek another shop, for he knew that what would
be known at one would be equally well known at all the rest. The hardest
thing that he had to bear was the knowledge that he had shut himself out
of all the chances that he now desired. He remembered with a pang the
words of an old negro to whom he had once been impudent, "Nevah min',
boy, nevah min', you 's bo'n, but you ain't daid!"

It was too true. He had not known then what would come. He had never
dreamed that anything so terrible could overtake him. Even in his