The country was fresh and bright under clear sunlight the next morning. A warm breeze was drying the ground and chasing raw-cotton clouds across the sky.
At ten o’clock I set out afoot for Captain Sherry’s. I didn’t have any trouble finding his house, a pinkish stuccoed bungalow with a terra cotta roof, reached from the road by a cobbled walk.
A white-clothed table with two places set stood on the tiled veranda that stretched across the front of the bungalow.
Before I could knock, the door was opened by a slim black man, not much more than a boy, in a white jacket. His features were thinner than most American Negroes’, aquiline, pleasantly intelligent.
“You’re going to catch colds lying around in wet roads,” I said, “if you don’t get run over.”
His mouth-ends ran towards his ears in a grin that showed me a lot of strong yellow teeth.
“Yes, sir,” he said, buzzing his s ’s, rolling the r , bowing. “The capitaine have waited breakfast that you be with him. You do sit down, sir. I will call him.”
“Not dog meat?”
His mouth-ends ran back and up again and he shook his head vigorously.
“No, sir.” He held up his black hands and counted the fingers. “There is orange and kippers and kidneys grilled and eggs and marmalade and toast and tea or coffee. There is not dog meat.”