Hank was the tacker leaderman, a heavy-set, blond Georgia boy about my age and a graduate of Georgia Tech. White mechanics could go to him and get any tacker they wanted, but he made the coloured mechanics wait until he could find a coloured tacker that was free. Most of the white tackers didn't like to work for coloured mechanics, and Hank wouldn't assign them to. He wasn't offensive about it, he'd just make the coloured mechanics wait, and if they got mad about it he gave them a line of his soft Southern jive. I found him on the quarter-deck talking to a couple of white women tackers in their welders' suits.

'How 'bout a tacker for a half hour or so?' I said.

He hadn't seen me coming toward him and when I spoke he jumped. Then he put on his special smile for coloured. 'Why, if it isn't the shot,' he said. 'Whataya say, big shot, long time no see. What's cooking?'

'All I want's a tacker,' I said. I knew it wasn't the way to go about it but I wasn't in the mood for jive.

'Say, fellow, you're getting fat-a regular capitalist.' He kept on as if he thought he was going to thaw me out. Then he turned to the two women. 'Here's a boy who's come out to California and made good in a big way; he's a leaderman in the sheet-metal department-one of Kelly's boys.'

I saw I couldn't rush him so I decided to dish out some too. 'You're doing fine yourself,' I said. 'The folks back in Georgia wouldn't know you.'

He kept his smile, but he began getting dirty. 'You said it, bo.' Then to the women, 'This boy's really a killer, got all the little brown gals in a dither about him.' To me again, 'How does you do it, bo?'

I got all set to curse him out; then right in the middle of it I realized that I was jumping the gun; he hadn't really said enough to start a rumpus about. I had to laugh. The three of them started to laugh with me. I said, 'Don't sell me too hard, buddy, you just might find a buyer.'