"Perfectly. Is that an excuse for saying it?"
"Some one who is less useful elsewhere, and whom I like less."
"Carrie," he had been intensely earnest. "I want to do the best thing, but I'm puzzled. I wonder if I'm selling my birthright for six thousand dollars?"
"But there's the doubt: I may convert; I may open the eyes of the blind; I may start a crusade for Negro rights."
"Don't believe it; it's useless; we'll never get our rights in this land."
"You don't believe that!" he had ejaculated, shocked.
Well, she must begin again. As she had hoped, he was waiting for her when she reached home. She welcomed him cordially, made a little music for him, and served tea.
"Bles," she said, "the Opposition has been laying a pretty shrewd trap for you."
"They are going to have you chosen as High School commencement orator."
"You--and not stuff, but 'Education' will be your natural theme. Indeed, they have so engineered it that the party chiefs expect from you a defence of their dropping of the Educational Bill."
"Yes, and probably your nomination will come before the speech and confirmation after."
Bles walked the floor excitedly for a while and then sat down and smiled.
"It was a shrewd move," he said; "but I think I thank them for it."
_"''T is the sport to see the engineer hoist by his own petar.'"_
Bles mused and she watched him covertly. Suddenly she leaned over.
"Moreover," she said, "about that same date I'm liable to lose my position as teacher."
He looked at her quickly, and she explained the coming revolution in school management.
He did not discuss the matter, and she was equally reticent; but when he entered the doors of his lodging-place and, gathering his mail, slowly mounted the stairs, there came the battle of his life.
He knew it and he tried to wage it coolly and with method. He arrayed the arguments side by side: on this side lay success; the greatest office ever held by a Negro in America--greater than Douglass or Bruce or Lynch had held--a landmark, a living example and inspiration. A man owed the world success; there were plenty who could fail and stumble and give multiple excuses. Should he be one? He viewed the other side. What must he pay for success? Aye, face it boldly--what? Mechanically he searched for his mail and undid the latest number of the _Colored American_. He was sure the answer stood there in Teerswell's biting vulgar English. And there it was, with a cartoon: