I finds that the most of my race up here aims to copy their actions after white folks when they is showing themselves off in public. They is forever trying to talk like whites and trying to appear deeply oninterested in passing things, the same as some white folks does, and even trying to think like whites, I expect. But when they gets off amongst themselves their natural feelings comes out on 'em and the true coloredism breaks forth and they cuts loose and enjoys themselves regardless. That's the way it is behind the closed doors of our club-rooms. Also, there's suitable games and indoor sports such as coon-can and two-bit-limit poker with the joker running wild and a round of rumdoodlums after every face-full; and when hunger gnaws at you there's a Chinee restaurant right handy by, which it caters 'specially to the colored trade. Here is where I first meets a crock of this here chop suey face to face; which it may be a Chinee dish but certainly is got a kind of an African flavor to it. If you can't get a mess of cow-peas and some real corn-pones and maybe half a fried young spring chicken with an abundance of gravy, I don't know of nothing which makes a more desirable light snack between meals than about fifty cents worth of chop suey with a double order of boiled rice on the side and some of that there greasy black Chinee sauce to sop it in.
It's one time in the front room of the club that I first takes special notice of this here U. S. G. Petty, which he is the same person I goes a-seeking upon leaving the studios on this day in question. The way he comes to bring himself to my attention is this way: One night five or six of us Pastimers in good standing is setting round not doing nothing in particular, but just setting, when talk arises concerning of Gabriel, the Black Prophet of Abyssinia, which his name is now on everybody's tongue, more or less.
It seems that the Black Prophet come a-projecting himself onto the local scene last spring, him claiming to hail from a far-off latitude called Abyssinia, and immediately he creates a big to-do, which is only to be expected considering of his general aspect. In the first place, he's a powerful orator and just overflowing with noble large words. In the second place, he's a great big over-bearing-looking man and wearing at all times a flowing garment of purple like the night-shirt of a king, and instead of having a hat on he's got his head all bandaged up in many silken folds like he's got scalp-trouble. Naturally, folks turns out to look at him; but language and curious clothes is not the sole things by which he recommends himself. He's got something even more compelling to the colored mind than what these two is--he's had a glorious vision, so he states, and he craves for to tell about it on all occasions where folks'll give heed; which they freely does, because he certainly can explain the whyfores and 'numerate the whereases and show the whereins. But showing wherein is his main hold.