“Stop *staring* at the man, Baker Bloch thought about Horace Wise. It’s like he’s never seen a black person before.
“So,” Duncan began, obviously conscious of the riveting gaze, “looks like we’ll have to start without our Mountain Lake representative Ms. Well.”
“A *wo*-man,” spoke Horace Wise incredulously from his side. “I think not. We already have [delete rest of sentence].”
Baker Bloch breathed deeply. Looking at him, Duncan decided to jump in first. “First of all, we’re African-*Americans*. Just like you Horace.”
Horace Wise finally broke his stare, sighed, and waved his arms around in despair. “The Virtual Chel-sea Hotel, the finest building, most likely, in this whole, wide conti-nent. Represented by *you*.”
Alright, that’s it Horace,” states Baker Bloch angrily. “I’m evoking class *5* status by rights of being the *author* of this novel — a *Collagesity* novel, after all — and saying that your Philo is disqualified, disqualified, *disqualified* from the race for the treasure. Now — *get out*. It will be between me, *Duncan* here — a man like yourself, thankfully, or I don’t know *what* you’d call him — and then Lou, our representative apparently from the Mountain Lake region of the Omega continent.” In his rage, he left out the remaining candidate at the table: Teepot’s Jeffrie Phillips.
But Horace Wise didn’t leave immediately. “You’re taking all this serious-ly. The” — he looks over at Duncan — “*black* man here. Then a woman. *Wo*-man.”
“Yes!!” Baker Bloch’s yell could probably be heard all the way over to Horace’s hometown.
And this is probably what a lot of people were like back then. And could still be. Yes, probably were around in good numbers still. Philo is *history*, but history repeats.