"'Tain't only Hetty, but all the wimmin's on his side."

"Thet's proof enough to me he ain't right." "Wimmin," says Watty, as the result of a period of philosophical consideration, "is all crazy about clothes. When a feller's got good clothes you can't make them see no harm into him, no matter what he is. I pressed some of Duncan's last Satiddy. I never see clothes--such goods and linin's. They was made for him, too--made by a tailor on Fifth Avenue, Noo York. I fergit the name now."

"Wal, Roland Barnette sez they ain't stylish. He sez they're too much like an undertaker's gitup."

"Wal, Roland oughter know. He's the fanciest dressed-up feller in the county."

"Yes, I guess he be."

The subject apparently languishes, but I know that it still occupies their sage meditations; and presently this is demonstrated by Hiram, who expectorates liberally by way of preface.

"When this cuss Duncan fust come here," he says with a self-contained chuckle, "ev'rybody but me figgered he had stacks of money. Guess they be singin' a different tune, now, sinst he's been goin' round askin'

for work."

This is news to me, and I sit up, sharing Watty's astonishment.

"Be he a-doin' thet, Hiram?"

"That's what he's been a-doin'."

"Funny I missed hearin' about it."

"He only started this mornin'. He went to Sothern and Lee's and Leonard and Call's and G.o.dfrey's--'nd then I guess he must 'ev quit discouraged. They wouldn't none of them give him nothin'. Leastways, thet's what they said after he'd gone out. He didn't give anybody a reel chance to say anythin'. I was in Leonard and Call's and he came in an' asked for a job, but the minute Len looked at him he turned right round and slunk out without a-waitin' for Len to say a word." Hiram smoked in huge enjoyment of the retrospect. "He's the curiousest critter we ever had in this town."

"Yes," agrees Watty, "I guess he be."

At this juncture comes an interruption; Tracey Tanner returns, hot-foot. Either he has been running, or his breathlessness is due to excitement. Before the two upon the bench he pauses in agitated glee, a bearer of tremendous tidings.

"h.e.l.lo," he pants.

"Now, you Tracey Tanner," Hiram cuts in sharply, "you run 'long an'

don't be a-botherin' round. Seems like a body never can git a chance to rest, with you children allus a-b.u.t.tin' in--"

"Aw, shet up," says Tracey dispa.s.sionately. "I only wanted to tell you the news."

Watty quavers: "What news, Tracey?"

"Well," says the boy, "I'll tell you, Watty, but I wouldn't 've told him after what he said."

"But what's the news, Tracey?" There is suspense in the iteration.

"Well, seein's it's you, Watty--"

"You Tracey Tanner, you run 'long and stop your jokin'!" interrupts Hiram with authority.

"'Tain't no joke; it's news, I'm tellin' you. Sa-ay, what d'ye think, Watty?"

"Yes, Tracey, yes? What is it, boy?"

"Thet--Noo--York--dood," drawls Tracey, "is a-workin' for Sam Graham!"

A dramatic pause ensues. I rise and find my coat.

"Tracey Tanner," shrills Hiram, "be you a-tellin' the truth?"

"Kiss my hand and cross my heart and vow Honest Injun, I seen him up there just now in the store, Watty, tendin' the sody fountain."

"Wal," says Hiram, rising, "I don't believe a word of it, but if it's true we better be goin' round to see, Watty, 'cause it ain't a-goin' to last long. He won't stay after he finds out Sam ain't got no money to pay his wages with."

VIII

THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO

There's no questioning the fact that two weeks of Radville had driven Duncan to desperation; on the morning of the fifteenth day he wakened in his room at Miss Carpenter's and lay for a time abed staring vacantly at the gaudily papered ceiling, not through laziness remaining on his back, but through sheer inertia. The prospect of rising to ramble through another purposeless, empty day appalled his imagination; it had been all very well when the humour of his project intrigued him, when the village was a novelty and its inhabitants "types" to be studied, watched, a.n.a.lysed and cla.s.sified with secret amus.e.m.e.nt; but now he felt that he had already exhausted its possibilities; he was a foreigner in thought and instinct, had as little in common with Radvillians as any newly imported Englishman would have had. In plain language, he was bored to the point of extinction.

"Why," he reflected aloud, "it doesn't seem reasonable, but I'm actually looking forward to the delirious dissipation of church next Sunday!

"Me?...

"If Kellogg could only see me now!"

He laughed mirthlessly.

"I must have done something to deserve this in my misspent life...

"Wonder if nothing ever happens here?.... I'd give a whole lot, if I had it, for a good rousing fire on Main Street--the Bigelow House, for choice....

"And it's got me to the point of drooling to myself, like those fellows you read about who get lost in the desert....

"Come! Get out of this! And, my boy, remember to 'count that day lost whose low descending sun sees nothing accomplished, nothing done.'...

"Probably misquoted, at that."

Sullenly he rose and dressed.

He was late at the breakfast and silent and reserved throughout that meal. Poor Miss Carpenter thought him dissatisfied and hung round his chair, purring with a solicitude that almost maddened him. As soon as possible he made his escape from the house.

The walk he indulged in that morning took him in a wide circle: south on the road to the Gap, then eastwards, crossing the railroad and the river, north through a smiling agricultural region, east to the Flats, and so across the stone bridge to the Old Town once more. He was trudging up Street toward Centre shortly after eleven--hot, a little tired, and utterly disgusted. The exercise, instead of exhilarating, had depressed him; the quickened flow of blood through his veins, the vigour of the clean air he inhaled, demanded of him action of some sort; and he had nothing whatever to do with himself all afternoon save drowse over "The Law of Torts."

Recognition of Leonard and Call's familiar shop-front fired him with a spirit of adventure and enterprise. He stopped short, thoughtfully rubbing his small moustache the wrong way, his vision glued to the embarra.s.singly candid window displays.

"It'd be an awful thing for me to do....

"Think of yourself, man, jumping counters in and out amongst all hose--those _Things!_ like a lunatic monkey performing on a Monday morning's clothes line!..."