6 - In the Dining-Room

As I emerged from the door of my room into the hall, I found a small
sedan-chair, of highly ornamental make, awaiting my convenience,
carried upon the shoulders of two diminutive boys, who were as black,
and shone as lustrously, as a bit of highly polished ebony. I had
never seen their like before, save in an occasional bit of statuary in
Italy, wherein marbles of differing hue and shade had been ingeniously
used by the sculptor to give color to his work. The boys themselves,
as I have said, were of polished ebony hue, while the breech-cloths
which formed their sole garment were of purest alabaster white. Upon
their heads were turbans of pink. They grinned broadly as I came out,
and opened the door of the chair for me.

"Dis way fo' de dinin'-room, sah," said one of them, showing a set of
ivory teeth that dazzled my eyes.

I thanked him and entered the chair. When I was seated, I turned to
the little chap.

"What particular god do you happen to be, Sambo?" I asked. It was
probably not the most reverent way to put it, but in a community like
Olympus gods are really at a discount, and the black particle was so
like a small pickaninny I used to know in Savannah that I could not
address him as if he were Jupiter himself.

"Massy me, massa," he returned, his smile nearly cutting the top of
his head off, reaching as it did around to the back of his ears. "I
ain' no gord. I'se jess one o' dese low-down or'nary toters. Me an'
him totes folks roun' de hotel."

"A very useful function that, Sambo; and where were you born?" I
asked. "North Carolina, or Georgia?"

"Me?" he replied, looking at me quizzically. "I guess yo's on'y
foolin', massa. Me? Why, I 'ain't never been borned at all, sah--"

"Jess growed, eh--like Topsy?" I asked.

"Who dat, Topsy?" he demanded.

"Oh, she was a little nigger girl that became very famous," I
explained.

"Doan' know nuffin' 'bout no Topsy," he said, shaking his head. "We
ain' niggers, eider, yo' know, me an' him ain't. We's statulary."

"What?" I cried. The word seemed new.

"Statulary," he continued. "We was carved, we was. There ain't nothin'
borned 'bout us. Never knowed who pap was. Man jess took a lot o'
mahble, he did, an' chiselled me an' him out."

I eyed both boys closely and perceived that in all probability he
spoke the truth. His flesh and dress had all of the texture of marble,
but now the question came up as to the gift of speech and movement and
the marvellous and graceful flexibility of their limbs.

"You can't fool me, Sambo," said I.