"You're fired! You started with your car in
Chicago, left it in Wyoming, and here you are! Git out of here before
I--"

"Cap'n, yessuh!" The Wildcat knew a gesture when he saw it. He
retreated, dragging his mascot goat a little too fast for Lily's
comfort.

"Goat, doggone you, whut fo' did you go A.W.O.L. an' git us bofe
loose f'm dat railroad job? Heah us is wid only fo' bits, an' all yo'
fault."

Lily admitted the charge in a plaintive bleat which softened the harsh
language which her master was bellowing at his mascot in the din of
Market Street. Presently the Wildcat forgot the acute misery of not
having any hard work staring him in the face. "Us has fo' bits. 'Ats
mo' money dan mos' folks has. Lily, us eats.

"I don't bother work, work don't bother me.
I'se fo' times as happy as a bumble bee.
Us eats when us kin git it, sleeps mos' all de time--"

At a lunch counter on Sutter Street much frequented by members of his
race the Wildcat spread the fifty cents out over rations that made up
in mass what they lacked in delicacy. Half way through the meal he
slacked up enough to get talkative. The boy next to him at the lunch
counter was confronted with enough food to hold him for a few minutes;
and it was at this more fortunate individual that the Wildcat directed
his remarks. "Podneh, whah at kin a boy locate a job of work in dis
yere town?"

"Whah you f'm?"

"Me an' mah mascot hails f'm Memphis."

"How come you so fah f'm home?"

"Boy, whah at did you meet up wid so much wantin' to know?"

"Good many jail niggers loose. Thought maybe--"

"Don't think no mo'. Don't think 'nuther word 'bout me an' Lily. I come
f'm de ahmy. Two yeahs in France, an' lately I lef' de Pullman railroad
people whut hires sleepin' cah po'tehs. 'At's all. Ain't no jail
connected wid me. All I craves is a job whut pays money."

"De wages at de docks unloadin' steamboats is ten dollahs a day.
Depen's on how much money you needs. Dey wants stevedores bad. Dey's a
strike."

"Boy, dey has me! I'se a bad stevedo'. Whah at is dis boat-unloadin'
bizness?"

The boy revealed the location of the ten-dollar job. "You trails along
afteh you gits to de wateh whah de big boats is. Half a mile f'm de
ferry buildin' you sees a gang standin' round. Them's strikers. You
goes through, an' de boss shows you whah to head in. Does you know de
stevedo' business?"

"I'll say us does. Me an' de res' ob de Fust Service Battalion unloaded