He always enjoyed his story and himself
in the telling. Tales never lost their savor, no matter how often
repeated; age was powerless to dim the humor of the thing, and as he
had shouted and gurgled and laughed over the fun of things when all
alone, or holding forth among the men and women and little children of
his color, so he shouted and gurgled and broke from sonorous chuckles
to musical, falsetto mirth when he fronted the sweeping tiers of faces
across the intoxicating glare of the footlights. He had that rare
power of transmitting something of his own enjoyments. When Gideon was
on the stage, Stuhk used to enjoy peeping out at the intent, smiling
faces of the audience, where men and women and children, hardened
theater-goers and folk fresh from the country, sat with moving lips
and faces lit with an eager interest and sympathy for the black man
strutting in loose-footed vivacity before them.
"He's simply unique," he boasted to wondering local managers--"unique,
and it took me to find him. There he was, a little black gold-mine,
and all of 'em passed him by until I came. Some eye? What? I guess
you'll admit you have to hand it some to your Uncle Felix.
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