“Say, you are Gideon, ain’t you?” his discoverer demanded, with a sort of reverent audacity.

“Yaas, seh,” said Gideon; “that’s me.  Yo’ shu got it right.”  He broke into a joyous peal of laughter—­the laughter that had made him famous, and bowed deeply before him.  “Gideon—­posi-tive-ly his las’ puffawmunce.”  Turning, he dashed for a passing trolley, and, still laughing, swung aboard.

He was naturally honest.  In a land of easy morality his friends had accounted him something of a paragon; nor had Stuhk ever had anything but praise for him.  But now he crushed aside the ethics of his intent without a single troubled thought.  Running away has always been inherent in the negro.  He gave one regretful thought to the gorgeous wardrobe he was leaving behind him; but he dared not return for it.  Stuhk might have taken it into his head to go back to their rooms.  He must content himself with the reflection that he was at that moment wearing his best.

The trolley seemed too slow for him, and, as always happened nowadays, he was recognized; he heard his name whispered, and was aware of the admiring glances of the curious.  Even popularity had its drawbacks.  He got down in front of a big hotel and chose a taxicab from the waiting rank, exhorting the driver to make his best speed to the station.  Leaning back in the soft depths of the cab, he savored his independence, cheered already by the swaying, lurching speed.  At the station he tipped the driver in lordly fashion, very much pleased with himself and anxious to give pleasure.  Only the sternest prudence and an unconquerable awe of uniform had kept him from tossing bills to the various traffic policemen who had seemed to smile upon his hurry.

No through train left for hours; but after the first disappointment of momentary check, he decided that he was more pleased than otherwise.  It would save embarrassment.  He was going South, where his color would be more considered than his reputation, and on the little local he chose there was a “Jim Crow” car—­one, that is, specially set aside for those of his race.  That it proved crowded and full of smoke did not trouble him at all, nor did the admiring pleasantries which the splendor of his apparel immediately called forth.  No one knew him; indeed, he was naturally enough mistaken for a prosperous gambler, a not unflattering supposition.  In the yard, after the train pulled out, he saw his private car under a glaring arc light, and grinned to see it left behind.

He spent the night pleasantly in a noisy game of high-low-jack, and the next morning slept more soundly than he had slept for weeks, hunched upon a wooden bench in the boxlike station of a North Carolina junction.  The express would have brought him to Jacksonville in twenty-four hours; the journey, as he took it, boarding any local that happened to be going south, and leaving it for meals or sometimes for sleep or often as the whim possessed him, filled five happy days.  There he took a night train, and dozed from Jacksonville until a little north of New Smyrna.