'Oh yes, that's right.' I didn't want to tell her that was the first I'd heard about it. 'Yes, I'm going to join the ranks of the Negro professionals.'

'It gives me a feeling of personal triumph, too, to see our young men progress so,' she said. 'I like to think that the doctor and I have contributed by setting an example, by showing our young men just what they can accomplish if they try.'

That was my cue to say, 'Yes indeedy.' But she looked so goddamned smug and complacent, sitting there in her two-hundred-dollar chair, her feet planted in her three-thousand-dollar rug, waving two or three thousand dollars' worth of diamonds on her hands, bought with dough her husband had made overcharging poor hard-working coloured people for his incompetent services, that I had a crazy impulse to needle her. The Scotch had gone to work too.

So I said, 'Well now, to tell you the truth, Mrs. Harrison, what I'm so pleased about today is I've just found out how I can get even with the white folks.'

She couldn't have looked any more startled and horrified if I'd slapped her. 'Bob!' she said. 'Why, I never heard of such a thing!' Her hands made a fluttery, nervous gesture. 'Why on earth should you feel you have to get even with them?' But before I could reply she went on, 'Bob, you frighten me. You'll never make a success with that attitude. You mustn't think in terms of trying to get even with them, you must accept whatever they do for you and try to prove yourself worthy to be entrusted with more.' Now she was completely agitated. 'I'm really ashamed of you, Bob. How can you expect them to do anything for you if you're going to hate them?'

'I don't expect them to do anything for me they can get out of doing anyway,' I said.

'You've been talking to those Communist union agitators out at the shipyard,' she accused. 'You mustn't let them influence you, Bob, you mustn't listen to them.' She was genuinely concerned; I felt sorry for her. 'Take the advice of an old lady, Bob. The doctor and I have many, many white friends. They come here and dine with us and we go to their homes and dine with them. We have earned their respect and admiration and they accept us as social equals. But just a few of us have escaped, just a few of us.'