It had only taken a few minutes to get to the site of the new Negro School at Saratoga and Courtland. He knew it was going to be taken over by White business interests with no rent paid after the 1904 fire. He wanted to do something to help with the education of these children over the intervening decades.

As Timothy let him and Richard in with Randy electing to stay outside with Bobby Shine, his temples had finally stopped pounding with anger. He was, however, not in an educational mood and was at a loss for words for the schoolmaster he saw even now overseeing the varnishing of the desks by his first class of students.

Is this the opening or a remodeling?

I’m surprisingly weak on my own city’s history.

The man was thin and clean shaven, in a conservative suit, and appeared thrilled to have visitors of obvious means. As the schoolmaster approached he wracked his brain—so recently intent on corporal punishment—for a tack to take.

I don’t know enough about the ancient classics and have no idea about the state of publishing in this era.

“Richard, please. I have five-thousand dollars I would like to use to equip this school with a library…”

As one would expect of a towering and painfully opinionated, intellectual Burton seized the moment. “Say no more Mister Stevenson.”

No, I don’t suppose I’ll get the chance.

Hats in hand they took the schoolmaster’s hand one at a time as he introduced himself to them as Alvin S. Thurman. “It is so nice of you gentlemen to stop by. A minute please, I can tell by his manner that Timothy here would like a word.”

The man then half-bent in an indulgent manner as the boy piped up, “Mister Thurman, these gentlemen made a big donation and then saved me from a police who was robbing the bucket. Should I take the donation to Miss Thurman?”

“Indeed Timothy, and then you might have the day off for your troubles. The others have pitched in and taken care of your desk and chair.”

Look, only a bare shelf of books, a single text it seems, and a chalkboard.

Burton was on top of things. “Mister Thurman, I am on confidential business, but have agreed to see to the disbursement of this gentleman’s funds, to the amount of five thousand dollars. This money shall be used to establish your library.”

Mister Thurman seemed aghast at the amount, and could not even manage to stammer a coherent reply.

Yes, you are doing some good. You have no expenses and a good salary—what a way to blow it!

What about the grandfather paradox?

Burton continued, “Sir, I mean to provide you with primers on Latin, Greek, English and French. German is too difficult for children and the other languages are those of barbarians besides. You can expect to be well set up with the complete works of classic, British, and contemporary American literature. Please, Might I have the address of the bookseller who has provided for you thus far?”

“Yes, of course, Mister Rudyard Hayes, at Thirteen-o-six South Hanover Street, let me send a boy.”

Burton was becoming imperious. “Rubbish Mister Thurman. If you mean to get the best services for your school I suggest you use a Whiteman of good standing as an agent, else you shall be shunted around like the Bedawi at the proverbial bazaar.”

Burton then stepped back to the door and cracked it, fairly hissing to Randy, “Mister Bracken, go immediately to Thirteen-o-six South Hanover Street and retrieve a certain Mister Rudyard Hayes to this school post haste. He is not to stall or dally. An agent of the Queen awaits him with your master’s open purse in hand.”

Mister Thurman had found his voice, “But Sir, Mister Hayes is a busy man and requires an appointment a week in advance.”

Burton fairly glowered like some Asiatic potentate. “Mister Thurman, I assure you the man shall be here as fast as his bookkeeper’s legs shall manage. Mister Bracken is a convincing sort of fellow. Now Sir, we have only this afternoon for me to ascertain your needs. Beyond the obvious selection required for literacy, the library shall need to be fleshed out with an eye towards rounding your education, as you are the font of this enterprise. In order to ascertain your needs will require but an hour if you do not mind?”

Mister Thurman was seemingly intimidated and bemused. “But of course Sir, what…”

And Burton was off like a runaway tyrant of a literary never-never land, firing off the names of authors and barely giving Mister Thurman the chance to comment, simply judging according to some sixth literary sense as to the extent of the man’s knowledge of a given author’s works based on the first word, or sometimes a mere syllable, of his reply.

Jan soon found himself attempting to come to the schoolmaster’s rescue with an enlightening reply or hint of his own, only to have Burton judge him as fixedly, and seeming to find him as wanting. This was like a bizarre game show run by the Professor from Hell who raced ahead with a new question faster than the overwhelmed student could answer:

“Euclid? Yaas.

“Bacon?

“But of course you wouldn’t.

“Isidore?

“Hurumph!

“Shakespeare?

“Yaas man, all of it!

“Cicero?

“Goood.

“Palgrave?

“Really!

“Homer?

“Both, good.

“Hobbes?

“Are you daft man?

“Do not even consider a reply. That was a rhetorical—

“Gibbon?

“That shall change.

“Aurelius?

“You shall read him again…”

…And on went the inquisition, through a litany of perhaps 200 authors from ancient to contemporary, for perhaps an hour, until Randy dragged a disheveled bookseller through the freshly finished front door.

Thank God. I am exhausted.

Jan and Mister Thurman patted one another on the shoulder as if they had just survived a natural disaster together, and now plump little Rudyard Hayes was in Burton’s sights, and his intellectual self-esteem would never recover, of this, Jan was certain.

With promises of a large series of book deliveries in the near future Mister Thurman was left to his schoolhouse and his wonderstruck students, one of which commented in the background as they were leaving, “Mister Thurman, how can a man with that much in his mind sleep nights?”

Before Mister Thurman could hush the girl Burton spoke deeply up into the rafters, “Why he reads himself to sleep my girl—would that we all did the same, even he.”

Poor Rudyard was flushed in the cheeks and fairly staggered along beneath the weight of the tall burly Burton, who seemed to lean on the man unconsciously with his arm around his narrow shoulders, as he quizzed him on inventory, editions, new releases, reprints, prices, special order rates, free delivery for the Negro Friends of the Queen…

Randy hailed them a carriage and rode on the running boards with Bobby Shine while Mister Hayes was harangued within. By the time they reached the establishment of Mister Hayes the man had agreed to put them up for a week while the library selections were made by Burton. By agreeing to accompany them directly to his home two blocks farther down Hanover Street Rudyard avoided having to trail in Burton’s wake as his collection was inspected—or at least managed to put it off until tomorrow.

With a huge sale in the making, Mister Hayes stopped long enough to close shop for the day before the four of them repaired to the bachelor’s house.

Good Lord, remind me never to get in a debate with Burton, and never to play him in a game of scrabble.

As hectic and hurried as Burton’s mad scramble to build a library seemed, it was serene compared to the scene outside the Carrollton, and Jan was glad to have left that madness behind him. Anger had rarely claimed him since reaching middle-age, had not even found a foothold in his mind during the ambush in Uruguay. But that incident outside the Carrollton had brought out the worst in him.

I didn’t even know you had it in you man.