"You might explain. Perhaps I'm dense."
"Well, if Grace minds that Duke has been tempered, she doesn't show it. She's pleased as punch. And he doesn't seem to mind."
"You've seen them? Since?"
"Oh, yes. I had breakfast with Their Charity yesterday morning. They were there."
"I thought Ponse was away?"
"He was back and now he's gone out to the West Coast. Business. We're really tearing into it. He was here only a couple of days. But he had this birthday present for Grace. Duke, I mean. Yes, I know it wasn't her birthday, and anyhow birthdays aren't anything nowadays; it's nameday that counts. But she told Ponse she was about to have a birthday and kept wheedling hiin-.-and you know Ponse, indulgent with animals and kids. So he set it up as a surprise for her. The minute he was back, he made a present of Duke to her. Shucks, they've even got a room off Ponse's private quarters; neither of them sleeps belowstairs, they live up here."
"Okay, I don't care where they sleep. You were telling me how Grace felt about it. And Duke."
"Oh, yes. Can't say just when she found out what had been done to Duke, all I can say is that she is so happy about it all that she was even cordial with me-telling me what a dear Ponsie was to arrange it and doesn't Dukie look just grand? In his new clothes? Stuff like that. She's got him dressed in the fancy livery the servants wear up here, not a robe like that you're wearing. She's even put jewelry on him. Ponse doesn't mind. He's an outright gift, a servant's servant. I don't think he does a lick of work, he's just her pet. And she loves it that way."
"But how about Duke?"
"That's what I've been telling you, Hugh; Duke hasn't lost by it. He's snug as a bug in a rug and he knows it. He was almost patronizing to me. You might have thought that I was the one wearing livery. With Grace in solid with the big boss and with her wound around his finger, Duke thinks he's got it made. Well, he has, Hugh. And I didn't mind his manner; I could see he was hopped on this tranquilizer you servants use."
"You call it 'got it made' when a man is grabbed and drugged and tempered and then kept drugged so that he doesn't care? Joe, I'm shocked."
"Certainly I call it that! Hugh, put your prejudices aside and look at it rationally. Duke is happy. If you don't believe it, let me take you in there and you talk to him. Talk to both of them. See for yourself."
"No, I don't think I could stomach it. I'll concede that Duke is happy. I'm well aware that if you feed a man enough of that Happiness drug, he'll be happy as a lark even if you cut off his arms and legs and then start on his head. But you can be that sort of 'happy' on morphine. Or heroin. Or opium. That doesn't make it a good thing. It's a tragedy."
"Oh, don't be melodramatic, Hugh. These things are all relative. Duke was certain to be tempered eventually. It's not lawful for a servant as big as he is to be kept for stud, I'm sure you know that. So what difference does it make whether it's done last week, or next year, or when Ponse dies? The only difference is that he is happy in a life of luxury, instead of hard manual labor in a mine, or a rice swamp, or such. He doesn't know anything useful, he could never hope to rise very high. High for a servant, I mean."
"Joe, do you know what you sound like? Like some whitesupremacy apologist telling how well off the darkies used to be, a-sittin' outside their cabins, a-strummin' their banjoes, and singin' spirituals."
Joe blinked. "I could resent that."
Hugh Farnham was angry and feeling reckless. "Go ahead and resent it! I can't stop you. You're a Chosen, I'm a servant. Can I fetch your white sheet for you, Massah? What time does the Klan meet?"
"Shut up!"
Hugh Farnham shut up. Joe went on quietly, "I won't bandy words with you. I suppose it does look that way to you. If so, do you expect me to weep? The shoe is on the other foot, that's all-and high time. I used to be a servant, now I'm a respected businessman-with a good chance of becoming a nephew by marriage of some noble family. Do you think I would swap back, even if I could? For Duke? Not for anybody, I'm no hypocrite. I was a servant, now you are one. What are you beefing about?"
"Joe, you were a decently treated employee. You were not a slave."
The younger man's eyes suddenly became opaque and his features took on an ebony hardness Hugh had never seen in him before. "Hugh," he said softly, "have you ever made a bus trip through Alabama? As a 'nigger'?"
"Then shut up. You don't know what you are talking about." He went on, "The subject is closed and now we'll talk business. I want you to see what I've done and am planning to do. This games notion is the best idea I ever had."
Hugh did not argue whose idea it had been; he listened while the young man went on with eager enthusiasm. At last Joe put down his pen and sat back. "What do you think of it? Any suggestions? You made some useful suggestions when I proposed it to Ponse-keep on being useful and there will be a good place in it for you."
Hugh hesitated. It seemed to him that Joe's plans were too ambitious for a market that was only a potential and a demand that had yet to be created. But all he said was, "It might be worth while to package with each deck, no extra charge, a rule book."
"Oh, no, we'll sell those separately. Make money on them."
"I didn't mean a complete Hoyle. Just a pamphlet with some of the simpler games. Cribbage. A couple of solitaire games. One or two others. Do that and the customers start enjoying them at once. It should lead to more sales."
"Hmm- I'll think about it." Joe folded up his papers, set them aside. "Hugh, you got so shirty a while ago that I didn't tell you one thing I have in mind."
"Yes?"
"Ponse is a grand old man, but he isn't going to live forever. I plan to have my own affairs separate from his by then so that I'll be financially independent. Trade around interests somehow, untangle it. I don't need to tell you that I'm not anxious to have Mrika as my boss-and I didn't tell you, so don't repeat it. But I'll manage it, I'm looking out for number one." He grinned. "And when Mrika is Lord Protector I won't be here. I'll have a household of my own, a modest one-and I'll need servants. Guess whom I plan to adopt when I staff it."
"I couldn't."
"Not you-although you may very well be a business servant to me, if it turns out you really can manage a job. No, I had in mind adopting Grace and Duke."
"Huh?"
"Surprised? Mrika won't want them, that's certain. He despises Grace because of her influence over his uncle, and it's a sure thing he's not going to like Duke any better. Neither of them is trained and it shouldn't be expensive to adopt them if I don't appear too eager. But they would be useful to me. For one thing, since they speak English, I'd be able to talk to them in a language nobody else knows, and that could be an advantage, especially when other servants are around. But best of all- Well, the food here is good but sometimes I get a longing for some plain old American cooking, and Grace is a good cook when she wants to be. So I'll make her a cook. Duke can't cook but he can learn to wait on table and answer the door and such. Houseboy, in other words. How about that?"
Hugh said slowly, "Joe, you don't want them because Grace can cook."
Joe grinned unashamedly. "No, not entirely. I think Duke would look real good as my houseboy. And Grace as my cook. Tit for tat. Oh, I'll treat them decently, Hugh, don't you worry. They work hard and behave themselves and they won't get tingled. However, I don't doubt but what it will take a few tingles before they get the idea." He twitched his quirt. "And I won't say I won't enjoy teaching them. I owe them a little. Three years, Hugh. Three years of Grace's endless demands, never satisfied with anything-and three years of being treated with patronizing contempt by Duke whenever he was around."