“How about the collector of the port?”

“We’d better not touch him.  It would bring the government down upon us, which we want to avoid.  We don’t need to worry about the nigger preachers either.  They want to stay here, where the loaves and the fishes are.  We can make ’em write letters to the newspapers justifying our course, as a condition of their remaining.”

“What about Billings?” asked McBane.  Billings was the white Republican mayor.  “Is that skunk to be allowed to stay in town?”

“No,” returned the general, “every white Republican office-holder ought to be made to go.  This town is only big enough for Democrats, and negroes who can be taught to keep their place.”

“What about the colored doctor,” queried McBane, “with the hospital, and the diamond ring, and the carriage, and the other fallals?”

“I shouldn’t interfere with Miller,” replied the general decisively.  “He’s a very good sort of a negro, doesn’t meddle with politics, nor tread on any one else’s toes.  His father was a good citizen, which counts in his favor.  He’s spending money in the community too, and contributes to its prosperity.”

“That sort of nigger, though, sets a bad example,” retorted McBane.  “They make it all the harder to keep the rest of ’em down.”

“‘One swallow does not make a summer,’” quoted the general.  “When we get things arranged, there’ll be no trouble.  A stream cannot rise higher than its fountain, and a smart nigger without a constituency will no longer be an object of fear.  I say, let the doctor alone.”

“He’ll have to keep mighty quiet, though,” muttered McBane discontentedly.  “I don’t like smart niggers.  I’ve had to shoot several of them, in the course of my life.”

“Personally, I dislike the man,” interposed Carteret, “and if I consulted my own inclinations, would say expel him with the rest; but my grievance is a personal one, and to gratify it in that way would be a loss to the community.  I wish to be strictly impartial in this matter, and to take no step which cannot be entirely justified by a wise regard for the public welfare.”

“What’s the use of all this hypocrisy, gentlemen?” sneered McBane.  “Every last one of us has an axe to grind!  The major may as well put an edge on his.  We’ll never get a better chance to have things our way.  If this nigger doctor annoys the major, we’ll run him out with the rest.  This is a white man’s country, and a white man’s city, and no nigger has any business here when a white man wants him gone!”

Carteret frowned darkly at this brutal characterization of their motives.  It robbed the enterprise of all its poetry, and put a solemn act of revolution upon the plane of a mere vulgar theft of power.  Even the general winced.

“I would not consent,” he said irritably, “to Miller’s being disturbed.”

McBane made no further objection.

There was a discreet knock at the door.