It was not a heroic retreat.  The conversation which he had had with his college friend Farquhar recurred to Peter.  Farquhar had tried to persuade Peter to remain North and take a position in a system of garages out of Chicago.

“You can do nothing in the South, Siner,” assured Farquhar; “your countrymen must stand on their own feet, just as you are doing.”

Peter had argued the vast majority of the negroes had no chance, but Farquhar pressed the point that Peter himself disproved his own statement.  At the time Peter felt there was an clench in the Illinoisan’s logic, but he was not skilful enough to analyze it.  Now the mulatto began to see that Farquhar was right.  The negro question was a matter of individual initiative.  Critics forgot that a race was composed of individual men.

Peter had an uneasy sense that this was exceedingly thin logic, a mere smoke screen behind which he meant to retreat back up North.  He walked on down the poor village street, turning it over and over in his mind, affirming it positively to himself, after the manner of uneasy consciences.

An unusual stir among the negroes on Hobbett’s corner caught Peter’s attention and broke into his chain of thought.  Half a dozen negroes stood on the corner, staring down toward the white church.  A black boy suddenly started running across the street, and disappeared among the stores on the other side.  Peter caught glimpses of him among the wretched alleyways and vacant lots that lie east of Main Street.  The boy was still running toward Niggertown.

By this time Peter was just opposite the watchers on the corner.  He lifted his voice and asked them the matter, but at the moment they began an excited talking, and no one heard him.

Jim Pink Staggs jerked off his fur cap, made a gesture, contorted his long, black face into a caricature of fright, and came loping across the street, looking back over his shoulder, mimicking a run for life His mummery set his audience howling.

The buffoon would have collided with Peter, but the mulatto caught Jim Pink by the arm and shoulder, brought him to a halt, and at the same time helped him keep his feet.

To Peter’s inquiry what was the matter, the black fellow whirled and blared out loudly, for the sake of his audience: 

“‘Fo’ Gawd, nigger, I sho thought Mr. Bobbs had me!” and he writhed his face into an idiotic grimace.

The audience reeled about in their mirth.  Because with negroes, as with white persons, two thirds of humor is in the reputation, and Jim Pink was of prodigious repute.

Peter walked along with him patiently, because he knew that until they were out of ear-shot of the crowd there was no way of getting a sensible answer out of Jim Pink.

“Where are you going?” he asked presently.

“Thought I’d step over to Niggertown.”  Jim Pink’s humorous air was still upon him.

“What’s doing over there?  What were the boys raising such a hullabaloo about?”