Somehow the odor had a queer effect of appearing to push his
conversation with the two white Northern men in the drawing-room back to
a distance, an indefinable distance of both space and time.
The negro put his suitcase under the seat, hung his overcoat on the
hook, and placed his hand-bag in the rack overhead; then with some
difficulty he opened a window and sat down by it.
A stir of travelers in the Cairo station drifted into the car. Against a
broad murmur of hurrying feet, moving trucks, and talking there stood
out the thin, flat voice of a Southern white girl calling good-by to
some one on the train. Peter could see her waving a bright parasol and
tiptoeing. A sandwich boy hurried past, shrilling his wares. Siner
leaned out, with fifteen cents, and signaled to him. The urchin
hesitated, and was about to reach up one of his wrapped parcels, when a
peremptory voice shouted at him from a lower car. With a sort of start
the lad deserted Siner and went trotting down to his white customer. A
moment later the train bell began ringing, and the Dixie Flier puffed
deliberately out of the Cairo station and moved across the Ohio bridge
into the South.
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