Without looking around, the Vanek picked up his plate and walked out the door. Junior watched in stunned silence.

“What was that all about?” he asked. “I was talking to him!”

“We don’t allow any Vaneks to eat in here,” Jeffers told him.

“Why not?”

“Because we don’t, that’s why!”

Junior could feel himself getting angry. He tried to put a lid on it. “Just who are the ‘we’ you’re referring to?”

“Me!” said Jeffers as he came around from behind the counter and approached Junior’s table. “It’s my place and I’ve got a right to call the shots in my own place!”

“Nobody said you didn’t only … only you could treat him with a certain amount of human dignity.” He winced at the triteness of his word.

“He’s a half-breed!”

“Then how about half the amount of dignity you’d accord a human? How’s that sound?”

Jeffers’s eyes narrowed. “Are you one of those meddlers from the capital?”

“No,” Junior said, dropping his fork into his mashed potatoes and lifting the plate. “I arrived on the planet about a week ago.”

“Then you’re not even from Jebinose!” Jeffers laughed. “You’re a foreigner!”

“Aren’t we all,” Junior remarked as he walked out the door.

The Vanek was seated on the boardwalk finishing his meal. Junior sat down beside him but put his own plate aside. He was choked with what he knew to be self-righteous anger and couldn’t eat. He tried to cool himself back to rationality.

“Is it always that way?” he asked finally.

The Vanek nodded. “Yes, but it is his store.”

“I know it’s his store,” Junior said, “but we’re going to change his attitude and I think I know just the way.”

The Vanek gave him a questioning glance.

“You’re going to take me to your tribe, or camp, or whatever it’s called and we’re going to put some pressure on Mr. Jeffers.” Junior was speaking of economic pressure, of course. Economic pressure was a household word as far as the Finch family was concerned.