ing of American Negroes all day! Please do not leave me yet. Can you spare a moment? Chauffeur, drive on!”
IV
As they sat at tea in the Tiergarten, under the tall black trees, Matthew’s story came pouring out:
“I was born in Virginia, Prince James County, where we black folk own most of the land. My mother, now many years a widow, farmed her little forty acres to educate me, her only child. There was a good school there with teachers from Hampton, the great boarding-school not far away. I was young when I finished the course and was sent to Hampton. There I was unhappy. I wanted to study for a profession, and they insisted on making me a farmer. I hated the farm. My mother finally sent me North. I boarded first with a cousin and then with friends in New York and went through high school and through the City College. I specialized on the pre-medical course, and by working nights and summers and playing football (amateur, of course, but paid excellent ‘expenses’ in fact), I was able to enter the new great medical school of the University of Manhattan, two years ago.
“It was a hard pull, but I plunged the line. I had to have scholarships, and I got them, although one Southern professor gave me the devil of a time.”
The lady interrupted. “Southern?” she asked. “What do you mean by ‘Southern’?”
“I mean from the former slave States—although the phrase isn’t just fair. Some of our most professional Southerners are Northern-born.”
The lady still looked puzzled, but Matthew talked on.
“This' man didn’t mean to be unfair, but he honestly didn’t believe ‘niggers’ had brains, even if he had the evidence before him. He flunked me on principle. I protested and finally had the matter up to the Dean; I showed all my other marks and got a re-examination at an extra cost that deprived me of a new overcoat. I gave him a perfect paper, and he had to acknowledge it was ‘good,’ although he made careful inquiries to see if I had not in some way cribbed dishonestly.
“At last I got my mark and my scholarship. During my sec-
