“Do you do any work besides your own housework?”

(Evasively) “Work?  If ah does any work?  No, not any.”

Enumerator looks hard from her to washtub.

“Ah—­er—­oh, ah washes a couple o’ gentlemen’s clot’es.”

“Very good.  Now then, how many children?”

“We don’ git no children, sah.”

“What!  How did that happen?”

Loud, house-shaking laughter.

Enumerator (looking at watch and finding it 12:10):  “Well, good afternoon.”

“Good evenin’, sah.  Thank you, sah.  Te!  He!”

Variations on the above might fill many pages: 

“How old are you?”

Self-appointed interpreter of the same shade; “He as’ how old is yo?”

“How old I are?  Ah don rightly know mah age, mahster, mah mother never tol’ me.”

St. Lucian woman, evidently about forty-five, after deep thought, plainly anxious to be as truthful as possible:  “Er—­ah’s twenty, sir.”

“Oh, you’re older than that.  About sixty, say?”

“’Bout dat, sah.”

“Are you married?”

(Pushing the children out of the way.) “N-not as yet, mah sweet mahster, bu-but—­but we go ‘n’ be soon, sah.”

To a Barbadian woman of forty:  “Just you and your daughter live here?”

“Dat’s all, sir.”

“Doesn’t your husband live here?”

“Oh, ah don’t never marry as yet, sah.”

Anent the old saying about the partnership of life and hope.

To a Dominican woman of fifty-two, toothless and pitted with small-pox:  “Are you married?”

(With simpering smile) “Not as yet, mah sweet mahster.”

To a Jamaican youth;

“How many people live in this room?”

“Three persons live here, sir.”

“I stand grammatically corrected.  When did you move here?”

“We remove here in April.”

“Again I apologize for my mere American grammar.  Now, Henry, what is your room-mate’s name?”

“Well, we calls him Ethel, but I don’t know his right title.  Peradventure he will not work this evening [afternoon] and you can ask him from himself.”

“Do his parents live on the Zone?”

“Oh, yes, sah, he has one father and one mother.”

An answer:  “Why himself [emphatic subject pronoun among Barbadians] didn’t know if he’d get a job.”

To a six-foot black giant working as night-hostler of steam-shovels: 

“Well, Josiah, I suppose you’re a Jamaican?”

“Oh, yes, boss, ah work in Kingston ten years as a bar-maid.”

“Married?”

“No, boss, ah’s not ‘xactly married.  Ah’s livin’ with a person.”

A colored family: 

Sarah Green, very black, has a child named Edward White, and is now living with Henry Brown, a light yellow negro.

West Indian wit: 

A shop-sign in Empire:  “Don’t ask for credit.  He is gone on vacation since January 1, 1912.”