en--but folks calls me Wilecat."

"If I can't buy the goat, I guess we'll have to negotiate the custody
of your feline corpus from the Pullman organization for the duration of
the Big Show."

"Yessuh." The Wildcat did not understand the big words, but whenever he
did not understand it was his principle to smile and agree to anything
that white gentlemen said.

"Yessuh. Ain't it de truf'?" He returned to the smoking compartment,
where the Backslid Baptist was auditing his tips.

The Backslid Baptist was busy at the moment excavating a busted cork
out of the neck of a queer looking square bottle.

"Baptis', whut you got?"

"Smells lak equalizer. Wait till Ah gits dis cork out, an' us sees."

"Whut dat sign say on de bottle?"

The Backslid Baptist inspected the label affixed to the flat side of
the bottle. "Ol' sign reads 'Acrobatic Spirits of Pneumonia.' Bam!
Un-konkered de ol' cork. Smell dat. 'At learns you not to believe in
signs. When yo' eyes sees one thing an' yo' nose sees another you
betteh believe yo' nose." He took a long drag at the bottle and passed
it over to the Wildcat.

"Whuf! Ol' lady in Lower 6 felt poo'ly dis mawnin', but she 'sorbed
th'ee drams f'm dis heah bottle, an' so far she's et twelve dollahs'
wuth ob grub up ahaid in de dinin' cah."

The Wildcat swung on to the "Acrobatic Spirits of Pneumonia," lingering
at the spout for several disappointing seconds after the contents of
the bottle had gurgled down his neck.

"Whuf! Ah missed de pneumonia, Backslid, but Ah sho' feels acrobatic.
How come de lady lose de bottle?"

"She done got careless when de spirits come. You better th'o 'at
glassware away now an' git ready fo' tellin' de boss how you craves a
porter's job."

Half an hour later, leading his mascot goat and closely convoyed by the
Backslid Baptist, the Wildcat walked down the platform in the dark
trainshed of the station in Chicago. Throughout the long ride down
Prairie Avenue to the habitation of the forger from whom the
recommending letters were to be obtained the Wildcat's woolly bean spun
with the momentum which he had drained from the bottle abandoned by the
careless lady in Lower 6.

An hour later, armed with five ironclad letters, he returned along the
route, arriving finally at the portals of the office building on West
Adams Street wherein Pullman porters are created from select brunet
humanity.

Presently, across a wide desk he confronted Authority. A kindly
gent