for him."

"There is the supper bell. Quick, Ben and Lilly, before the Kembles."

The dining room, directly over the basement kitchen, jutted in an ell
off the rear of the house so that from the back parlor it was not
difficult to precede the immediate overhead response to that bell. A
black-faced genii of the bowl and weal, in a very dubiously white-duck
coat thrust on hurriedly over clothing reminiscent of the day's window
washing and furnace cinders, held attitude in among the small tables
that littered the room. There were four. A long table seating ten and
punctuated by two sets of cruets, two plates of bread, and two
white-china water pitchers; Mr. Hazzard's tiny square of individual
table, a perpetual bottle of brown medicine beside his place. The
Kembles also enjoyed segregation from the mother table, the family
invariably straggling in one by one. For the Beckers was reserved the
slight bulge of bay window that looked out upon the Suburban street-car
tracks and a battalion of unpainted woodsheds. A red geranium, potted
and wrapped around in green crepe tissue paper, sprouted center table, a
small bottle of jam and two condiments lending further distinction. A
napkin with self-invented fasteners dangled from Mr. Becker's chair, and
beside Lilly's place a sterling silver and privately owned knife and
fork, monogrammed.

To Mr. Becker, the negro race was largely and genetically christened
Gawge, to be addressed solely in native patois.

"Evenin', Gawge."

"Evenin', Mistah Beckah."