you in exonerating this Negro cook? I am surprised at his vehemence on the issue.”
“I’m not,” said my employer. “There’s a lot of courage in that little man, whether you agree with everything he believes or not. And when he makes up his mind about something, he doesn’t give a damn what anybody else thinks. I found that out when we did our lecture tour together as the ’twins of genius.’ If he’d been more willing to bend to the prevailing wind when he lived down here, he might have had an easier time of it.”
“How do you mean?”
Mr. Clemens frowned. “George was a staunch advocate of a fair deal for the colored man long before I first met him. That has never been a popular position to take here in Louisiana, even a dozen years ago, and the tide has been running entirely against colored rights ever since.”
I was surprised. “Is the situation really that bad? The Negroes I’ve seen on the streets seem happy and prosperous enough.”
“You’ve still got a few things to learn, Wentworth,” said Mr. Clemens. “There are laws on the books in Louisiana that deny a colored man the right to sit on a streetcar or in a train, if a white man wants his seat. It doesn’t affect you, so of course you wouldn’t notice it, but the colored man has to live with it every day. He can’t eat in the same restaurant as you can, or shop in the same stores. Hell, it doesn’t matter if his skin’s as light as yours and mine, if the law can prove he had one black great-grandparent. That’s the way the good people of Louisiana want to run their state, and God help any man with the audacity to tell them they’re wrong. George may have been a native, and a Confederate veteran, and the best writer Louisiana has ever produced. That didn’t help his case at all. It just made him more a traitor in their eyes.” His voice took on considerable heat as he spoke, and I looked apprehensively around the car to see if anyone had overheard him, but the nearby seats were vacant, and none of the other passengers seemed to be paying us any mind.
“The ironic part of it is,” Mr. Clemens continued, “George fell out of favor with the Creoles, as well. He tried to portray them honestly and accurately in his writing, which is exactly what a writer is supposed to do.”
“Who exactly are the Creoles?” I asked. “I thought they were the descendants of the original French settlers.”
“They all speak the patois, but there’s Spanish blood in the mix, as well as French, and sometimes a touch of the African or Indian, too. George probably has as much real affection for them and their way of life as any man alive. But when he published his books about the old times in New Orleans, some of the leading Creoles thought he was mocking them—the stiff-necked fools! And so, between them and the damned lily-white bigots, George found himself surrounded by enemies in his own hometown. Finally, a few years ago, his friends convinced him to move to Massachusetts, where his opinions were less likely to bring armed men to his door.”
“Ah, I thought he still made his home in Louisiana. Why on Earth has he come back, then, if he has so many enemies here?”
“The same thing that brings me back: writing a book. A man can only trust his memory so far, Wentworth. There comes a time when you have to set foot on the ground you’re writing about, even if it costs you a certain amount of pain. Despite all that’s happened to him, George still loves this place. I can understand why. If you’d spent the first part of your life eating meals like that one tonight, could you live out your days in New England, knowing you were condemning yourself never to taste pompano again? For a plate of fish cooked like that, and an evening of talk like that, I’d make a dinner date with the devil himself, even if the table was set by the hottest furnace in Hell.”
I wasn’t certain I’d go to quite that length, but I had to admit that, barring the local predilection for excessive spice, I could easily grow accustomed to the food in New Orleans. And, after Mr. Cable’s extravagant praise of Leonard Galloway’s prowess in the kitchen, I found myself almost wishing that Mr. Clemens would decide to help the poor fellow, if only so I could sample his cooking.
3
Mr. Clemens spent the next morning catching up on his writing and correspondence, which despite our best efforts, he had fallen behind in during our journey down the Mississippi on the steamboat Horace Greeley. He dictated a number of business letters to me, and once again, I regretted that Yale had not offered courses in shorthand, although I had gotten the knack of quickly jotting down his intention, if not his exact words. Later, I would turn my notes into finished letters while he took care of matters that required his personal attention. As usual, he devoted much of his time to a long letter to his wife and daughters, whom he had sent to Europe, where they could live more cheaply than at home, while he worked to liquidate his debts.
Toward that end, he had boarded up his home in Hartford, Connecticut, and, with the backing of Mr. Henry H. Rogers, the oil millionaire, embarked on the steamboat cruise and lecture tour down the Mississippi on which I had served as his secretary. (While I was responsible only to Mr. Clemens, I had learned that Mr. Rogers was actually the one who paid my salary, as well as Mr. Clemens’s traveling expenses.) At the same time, he had begun a book describing our journey, with plentiful observations on the customs, the history, and the life of the great American waterway. We were scheduled to give two final lectures here in New Orleans; meanwhile, Mr. Clemens worked on his newest book.
It was already after noon when a knock announced the arrival of Mr. Cable. Mr. Clemens greeted him enthusiastically, but his expression changed when Mr. Cable asked, “Have you looked into the Galloway case?”
“Damnation! I meant to, but I got involved in business, and it completely slipped out of my mind,” said my employer, slumping back into his overstuffed chair. I was somewhat embarrassed, also having completely forgotten his promise to investigate the cook’s arrest for poisoning his master.
“I wish you wouldn’t swear, Sam,” said Mr. Cable, a stem expression on his face. “I’m disappointed in you. You told me last night that you wanted to find out the facts before deciding whether to help poor Leonard Galloway, and the facts aren’t going to walk up to your door and knock.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Mr. Clemens admitted. “I’ll work on it this afternoon, if I get the chance.”
Mr. Cable gave my employer an indulgent look. “Sam Clemens, I know you better than that. You have the best intentions in the world, but you’re lazy as an old dog on a hot summer day. Well, I’m here to see that you don’t have any more excuse to put off fulfilling your promise.”
“Promise? I don’t remember promising to help the fellow.”
“No,” said Mr. Cable. “You promised to find out the facts—first thing this morning. Well, here it is after noon, and you don’t know any more than you did last night. Luckily for you, I still have a few friends in New Orleans, and one of them has offered to meet us for lunch and talk about the Galloway case. The facts may not come knocking, but if you’re willing to walk two or three blocks with me—and you’d better be, Sam!—I can promise you’ll find out some things that didn’t get into the newspapers.”
“It doesn’t look as if I have much choice,” said Mr. Clemens, standing up. “Come along, Wentworth, we might as well find out what George has up his sleeve. At worst, we’ll get another good meal out of it.”
We walked down to Saint Peter Street, where at a table in the courtyard of a little café, smoking a dark-colored cheroot, sat a rotund man of medium stature, meticulously dressed, and sporting a dark mustache waxed to
