which he knew that, miles away, the forests lay.
§
To many, the scene which ensued on the upper Meeting House Road stands out as an exquisitely humorous episode, to be told and retold with touching up of high lights and artistic embellishments. To these, in the eyes of whom the negro is wholly humorous, per se, there was not the omission of a single conventional and readily recognizable stage property.
For, after all, what could have been funnier than an entirely serious race between a negro in a dilapidated goat-cart, and the municipality's shining new patrol wagon, fully offered and clanging its bell for the crowds to hear as it came.
The finish took place in the vicinity of the railway yards and factories, and the street was filled with workmen who smoked against the walls, or ate their lunch, sitting at the pavement's edge-grand-stand seats, as they were quite accurately described in the telling.
The street cars ran seldom that far out; and Porgy had the thoroughfare almost entirely to himself. His face wore a demented look, and was working pitifully. In his
