"In the Deep South, you are dealing with a sheriff or a landlord or a landlady or a girl of the Western Union desk, and she doesn't know quite who she's dealing with—by which I mean, that if you're not a part of the town, and if you are a "northern nigger", it shows in millions of ways. So she simply knows that it's an unknown quantity, and she wants to have nothing to do with it. Because she won't talk to you, you have to wait for a while to get your telegram. Okay, we all know this. We've been through it, and by the time you get to be a man, it's very easy to deal with."