Jake was paid off. He changed a pound note he had brought with him. He had fifty-nine dollars. From South Ferry he took an express subway train for Harlem.

Jake drank three Martini cocktails with cherries in them. The price, he noticed, had gone up from ten to twenty-five cents. He went to Bank’s and had a Maryland fried-chicken feed⁠—a big one with candied sweet potatoes.

He left his suitcase behind the counter of a saloon on Lenox Avenue. He went for a promenade on Seventh Avenue between 135th and 140th Streets. He thrilled to Harlem. His blood was hot. His eyes were alert as he sniffed the street like a hound. Seventh Avenue was nice, a little too nice that night.

Jake turned off on Lenox Avenue. He stopped before an ice-cream parlor to admire girls sipping ice-cream soda through straws. He went into a cabaret.⁠ ⁠…

A little brown girl aimed the arrow of her eye at him as he entered. Jake was wearing a steel-gray English suit. It fitted him loosely and well, perfectly suited his presence. She knew at once that Jake must have just landed. She rested her chin on the back of her hands and smiled at him. There was something in his attitude, in his hungry wolf’s eyes, that went warmly to her. She was brown, but she had tinted her leaf-like face to a ravishing chestnut. She had on an orange scarf over a green frock, which was way above her knees, giving an adequate view of legs lovely in fine champagne-colored stockings.⁠ ⁠…

Her shaft hit home.⁠ ⁠… Jake crossed over to her table. He ordered Scotch and soda.

“Scotch is better with soda or even water,” he said. “English folks don’t take whisky straight, as we do.”

But she preferred ginger ale in place of soda. The cabaret singer, seeing that they were making up to each other, came expressly over to their table and sang. Jake gave the singer fifty cents.⁠ ⁠…

Her left hand was on the table. Jake covered it with his right.

“Is it clear sailing between us, sweetie?” he asked.

“Sure thing.⁠ ⁠… You just landed from over there?”

“Just today!”

“But there wasn’t no boat in with soldiers today, daddy.”

“I made it in a special one.”

“Why, you lucky baby!⁠ ⁠… I’d like to go to another place, though. What about you?”

“Anything you say, I’m game,” responded Jake.

They walked along Lenox Avenue. He held her arm. His flesh tingled. He felt as if his whole body was a flaming wave. She was intoxicated, blinded under the overwhelming force.

But nevertheless she did not forget her business.

“How much is it going to be, daddy?” she demanded.

“How much? How much? Five?”

“Aw no, daddy.⁠ ⁠…”

“Ten?”

She shook her head.

“Twenty, sweetie!” he said, gallantly.

“Daddy,” she answered, “I wants fifty.”

“Good,” he agreed. He was satisfied. She was responsive. She was beautiful. He loved the curious color on her cheek.

They went to a buffet flat on 137th Street. The proprietress opened the door without removing the chain and peeked out. She was a matronly mulatto woman. She recognized the girl, who had put herself in front of Jake, and she slid back the chain and said, “Come right in.”

The windows were heavily and carefully shaded. There was beer and wine, and there was plenty of hard liquor. Black and brown men sat at two tables in one room, playing poker. In the other room a phonograph was grinding out a “blues,” and some couples were dancing, thick as maggots in a vat of sweet liquor, and as wriggling.

Jake danced with the girl. They shuffled warmly, gloriously about the room. He encircled her waist with both hands, and she put both of hers up to his shoulders and laid her head against his breast. And they shuffled around.

“Harlem! Harlem!” thought Jake. “Where else could I have all this life but Harlem? Good old Harlem! Chocolate Harlem! Sweet Harlem! Harlem, I’ve got you’ number down. Lenox Avenue, you’re a bear, I know it. And, baby honey, sure enough youse a pippin for your pappy. Oh, boy!”⁠ ⁠…

After Jake had paid for his drinks, that fifty-dollar note was all he had left in the world. He gave it to the girl.⁠ ⁠…

“Is we going now, honey?” he asked her.

“Sure, daddy. Let’s beat it.”⁠ ⁠…

Oh, to be in Harlem again after two years away. The deep-dyed color, the thickness, the closeness of it. The noises of Harlem. The sugared laughter. The honey-talk on its streets. And all night long, ragtime and “blues” playing somewhere,⁠ ⁠… singing somewhere, dancing somewhere! Oh, the contagious fever of Harlem. Burning everywhere in dark-eyed Harlem.⁠ ⁠… Burning now in Jake’s sweet blood.⁠ ⁠…

He woke up in the morning in a state of perfect peace. She brought him hot coffee and cream and doughnuts. He yawned. He sighed. He was satisfied. He breakfasted. He washed. He dressed. The sun was shining. He sniffed the fine dry air. Happy, familiar Harlem.

“I ain’t got a cent to my name,” mused Jake, “but ahm as happy as a prince, all the same. Yes, I is.”

He loitered down Lenox Avenue. He shoved his hand in his pocket⁠—pulled out the fifty-dollar note. A piece of paper was pinned to it on which was scrawled in pencil:

“Just a little gift from a baby girl to a honey boy!”