David Harum by Edward Noyes Westcott (novels to improve english .TXT) 📕

of one who had endured to the end of virtue, "an' I says to him the other day, 'Wa'al,' I says, 'if I can't suit ye, mebbe you'd better suit yourself.'"

"Ah!" said John politely, seeing that some response was expected of him; "and what did he say to that?"

"He ast me," replied Chet, "if I meant by that to throw up the situation. 'Wa'al,' I says 'I'm sick enough to throw up most anythin',' I says, 'along with bein' found fault with fer nothin'.'"

"And then?" queried John, who had received the impression that the motion to adjourn had come from the other side of the house.

"Wa'al," replied Chet, not quite so confidently, "he said somethin' about my requirin' a larger spear of action, an' that he thought I'd do better on a mile track--some o' his hoss talk. That's another thing," said Timson, changing the subject. "He's all fer hosses. He'd sooner make a ten-dollar note on a hoss trade than a hunderd right here 'n this office. Many's the time right in bus'nis hours, when I've wanted to ask him how he wanted somethin' done, he'd be busy talkin' hoss, an' wouldn't pay no attention to me more'n 's if I wa'n't there."

"I am glad to feel," said John, "that you can not possibly have any unpleasant feeling toward me, seeing that you resigned as you did."

"Cert'nly not, cert'nly not," declared Timson, a little uneasily. "If it hadn't 'a' ben you, it would 'a' had to ben somebody else, an' now I seen you an' had a talk with you--Wa'al, I guess I better git back into the other room. Dave's liable to come in any minute. But," he said in parting, "I will give ye piece of advice: You keep enough laid by to pay your gettin' back to N'York. You may want it in a hurry," and with this parting shot the rejected one took his leave.

* * * * *

The bank parlor was lighted by a window and a glazed door in the rear wall, and another window on the south side. Mr. Harum's desk was by the rear, or west, window, which gave view of his house, standing some hundred feet back from the street. The south, or side, window afforded a view of his front yard and that of an adjoining dwelling, beyond which rose the wall of a mercantile block. Business was encroaching upon David's domain. Our friend stood looking out of the south window. To the left a bit of Main Street was visible, and the naked branches of the elms and maples with which it was bordered were waving defiantly at their rivals over the way, incited thereto by a northwest wind.

We invariably form a mental picture of every unknown person of whom we think at all. It may be so faint that we are unconscious of it at the time, or so vivid that it is always recalled until dissipated by seeing the person himself, or his likeness. But that we do so make a picture is proved by the fact that upon being confronted by the real features of the person in question we always experience a certain amount of surprise, even when we have not been conscious of a different conception of him.

Be that as it may, however, there was no question in John Lenox's mind as to the identity of the person who at last came briskly into the back office and interrupted his meditations. Rather under the middle height, he was broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a clean-shaven, red face, with--not a mole--but a slight protuberance the size of half a large pea on the line from the nostril to the corner of the mouth; bald over the crown and to a line a couple of inches above the ear, below that thick and somewhat bushy hair of yellowish red, showing a mingling of gray; small but very blue eyes; a thick nose, of no classifiable shape, and a large mouth with the lips so pressed together as to produce a slightly downward and yet rather humorous curve at the corners. He was dressed in a sack coat of dark "pepper-and-salt," with waistcoat and trousers to match. A somewhat old-fashioned standing collar, flaring away from the throat, was encircled by a red cravat, tied in a bow under his chin. A diamond stud of perhaps two carats showed in the triangle of spotless shirt front, and on his head was a cloth cap with ear lappets. He accosted our friend with, "I reckon you must be Mr. Lenox. How are you? I'm glad to see you," tugging off a thick buckskin glove, and putting out a plump but muscular hand.

John thanked him as they shook hands, and "hoped he was well."

"Wa'al," said Mr. Harum, "I'm improvin' slowly. I've got so 'st I c'n set up long enough to have my bed made. Come last night, I s'pose? Anybody to the deepo to bring ye over? This time o' year once 'n a while the' don't nobody go over for passengers."

John said that he had had no trouble. A man by the name of Robinson had brought him and his luggage.

"E-up!" said David with a nod, backing up to the fire which was burning in the grate of the Franklin stove, "'Dug' Robinson. 'D he do the p'lite thing in the matter of questions an' gen'ral conversation?" he asked with a grin. John laughed in reply to this question.

"Where'd you put up?" asked David, John said that he passed the night at the Eagle Hotel. Mr. Harum had seen Dick Larrabee that morning and heard what he had to say of our friend's reception, but he liked to get his information from original sources.

"Make ye putty comf'table?" he asked, turning to eject a mouthful into the fire.

"I got along pretty well under the circumstances," said John.

Mr. Harum did not press the inquiry. "How'd you leave the gen'ral?" he inquired.

"He seemed to be well," replied John, "and he wished to be kindly remembered to you."

"Fine man, the gen'ral," declared David, well pleased. "Fine man all 'round. Word's as good as his bond. Yes, sir, when the gen'ral gives his warrant, I don't care whether I see the critter or not. Know him much?"

"He and my father were old friends, and I have known him a good many years," replied John, adding, "he has been very kind and friendly to me."

"Set down, set down," said Mr. Harum, pointing to a chair. Seating himself, he took off his cap and dropped it with his gloves on the floor. "How long you ben here in the office?" he asked.

"Perhaps half an hour," was the reply.

"I meant to have ben here when you come," said the banker, "but I got hendered about a matter of a hoss I'm looking at. I guess I'll shut that door," making a move toward the one into the front office.

"Allow me," said John, getting up and closing it.

"May's well shut the other one while you're about it. Thank you," as John resumed his seat. "I hain't got nothin' very private, but I'm 'fraid of distractin' Timson's mind. Did he int'duce himself?"

"Yes," said John, "we introduced ourselves and had a few minutes conversation."

"Gin ye his hull hist'ry an' a few relations throwed in?"

"There was hardly time for that," said John, smiling.

"Rubbed a little furn'ture polish into my char'cter an' repitation?" insinuated Mr. Harum.

"Most of our talk was on the subject of his duties and responsibilities," was John's reply. ("Don't cal'late to let on any more'n he cal'lates to," thought David to himself.)

"Allowed he run the hull shebang, didn't he?"

"He seemed to have a pretty large idea of what was required of one in his place," admitted the witness.

"Kind o' friendly, was he?" asked David.

"Well," said John, "after we had talked for a while I said to him that I was glad to think that he could have no unpleasant feeling toward me, seeing that he had given up the place of his own preference, and he assured me that he had none."

David turned and looked at John for an instant, with a twinkle in his eye. The younger man returned the look and smiled slightly. David laughed outright.

"I guess you've seen folks before," he remarked.

"I have never met any one exactly like Mr. Timson, I think," said our friend with a slight laugh.

"Fortunitly them kind is rare," observed Mr. Harum dryly, rising and going to his desk, from a drawer of which he produced a couple of cigars, one of which he proffered to John, who, for the first time in his life, during the next half hour regretted that he was a smoker. David sat for two or three minutes puffing diligently, and then took the weed out of his mouth and looked contemplatively at it.

"How do you like that cigar?" he inquired.

"It burns very nicely," said the victim. Mr. Harum emitted a cough which was like a chuckle, or a chuckle which was like a cough, and relapsed into silence again. Presently he turned his head, looked curiously at the young man for a moment, and then turned his glance again to the fire.

"I've ben wonderin' some," he said, "pertic'lerly since I see you, how 't was 't you wanted to come up here to Homeville. Gen'l Wolsey gin his warrant, an' so I reckon you hadn't ben gettin' into no scrape nor nothin'," and again he looked sharply at the young man at his side.

"Did the general say nothing of my affairs?" the latter asked.

"No," replied David, "all 't he said was in a gen'ral way that he'd knowed you an' your folks a good while, an' he thought you'd be jest the feller I was lookin' fer. Mebbe he reckoned that if you wanted your story told, you'd ruther tell it yourself."


CHAPTER XIV.

Whatever might have been John's repugnance to making a confidant of the man whom he had known but for half an hour, he acknowledged to himself that the other's curiosity was not only natural but proper. He could not but know that in appearance and manner he was in marked contrast with those whom the man had so far seen. He divined the fact that his coming from a great city to settle down in a village town would furnish matter for surprise and conjecture, and felt that it would be to his advantage with the man who was to be his employer that he should be perfectly and obviously frank upon all matters of his own which might be properly mentioned. He had an instinctive feeling that Harum combined acuteness and suspiciousness to a very large degree, and he had also a feeling that the old man's confidence, once gained, would not be easily shaken. So he told his hearer so much of his history as he thought pertinent, and David listened without interruption or comment, save an occasional "E-um'm."

"And here I am," John remarked in conclusion.

"Here you _be_, fer a fact," said David. "Wa'al, the's worse places 'n Homeville--after you git used to it," he added in qualification. "I ben back here a matter o' thirteen or fourteen year now, an' am gettin' to feel my way 'round putty well;