Eliph' had said nothing to Doc Weaver about the affair of the fire-extinguishers, he had known nothing of the graft matter, and yet it could not be supposed that Doc Weaver could be a confidant of the attorney's. The editor was puzzled, but he was sure he was right in the main, and he was nearer learning the truth than he supposed, as he hurried down the street to the mayor's car-cobbler shop.
He opened the door and stepped inside, but the mayor did not look up with his usual smile; he was sulking, and from time to time he rubbed his head where the butcher had struck him.
“How do, Stitz,” said the editor. “How's the mayor?”
The cobbler pulled his waxed threads angrily through a tough bit of leather, and did not look up.
“I am no more a mayor,” he said crossly. “I am out of that mayor job. I give him up. I haf been insulted.”
“I saw it,” the editor assured him. “He gave you a good whack. Sounded like a wet plank falling on a marble slab. Mad about the fire-extinguishers business, wasn't he?”
“And why?” asked the mayor, looking up for the first time, “he has a right to obey those ordinances and not get mad.”
“Oh, but he don't like the way folks will laugh at him when they learn the joke you have played on him. That was a good one.”
“Joke?” queried the mayor, growing brighter. “Did I play him one joke?”
“You know,” said T. J. “Making him buy those lung-testers of Miss Briggs' when he thought they were fire-extinguishers. I should say it WAS a joke!”
“Sit down,” said the mayor; “don't hang on those straps when seats is enough and plenty. Sit down. So I joked him, yes?”
“Rather,” said the editor, “and Guthrie, too, making him pay that graft.”
“Sure!” grinned the cobbler. “I got goot grafts. Apples, and potatoes, and celery, and peas, and chickens! Five grafts for one such little ordinances. Grafts is a good business, but now is all over. I quit me that boss-grafter job. I like me not such kloppings on the head. Next comes such riots, and revolutionings. I quit first.” He sewed steadily for a while then prepared another thread, waxing it, and twisting the bristle on either end.
“That fire-extinguishers joke,” he said, as he ran the ball of wax up and down the thread; “that was a good one, yes? On Skinner. That makes me a revenge on Skinner for such a klop on the head, yes?”
He adjusted the shoe on his knee, and began to sew again.
“Yes,” he said, “I am glad I make that joke on Skinner. What was it?”
“Come now!” said T. J. “Don't pretend such innocence, Stitz. Don't try to fool ME. You knew all the time that those fire-extinguishers were nothing but lung-testers.” The mayor looked puzzled, and properly, for he had never heard of lung-testers. “To test lungs,” explained the editor. “To show how many pounds a man can blow; how much wind his lungs will hold; a sort of game, like pitching horseshoes. They are not worth anything to Skinner. He paid his money for them for nothing. He will have to buy four genuine fire-extinguishers now. That was what made him mad at you.”
When the editor left Stitz's car he had learned all the mayor could tell him, including the undoubted fact that the mayor considered graft a quite legitimate operation, and this particular case a good joke on Skinner and Colonel Guthrie, and that the mayor himself, thinking the joke too good to keep, had told Doc Weaver. The editor easily guessed that Doc had investigated the rest of the affair, and had seen the fire-extinguishers and known them to be not what they seemed. He hurried back to his office to set in type what he had learned.
But others were abroad, too. Attorney Toole, watching the editor, had seen him enter the cobbler-car and leave it again, and he easily guessed the object of the editor's visit. He, too, went to see Stitz, and had a long and confidential talk with him, first frightening him until he was in a collapse, and then offering him immunity and safety, and at length leaving him in a perspiration of gratitude. He held up to him a vision of the penitentiary as the reward of grafting, and when the mayor was sufficiently wilted, rebraced him by promising to defend him, whatever happened, and finally restored him to complacency by showing him that the transaction was not graft at all. When he parted from the mayor, that official was, as opposition papers put it, “a creature of the attorney's.”
The attorney found Skinner in his butcher-shop surrounded by a group of friends, to whom he was relating a story of how he had been attacked by the Colonel, and what would have happened to the Colonel if intervention had not come just when it did. Toole entered briskly and pushed his way through the group to where the butcher stood.
“Skinner,” he said, “I want half a dozen words with you, at once,” and his manner was enough to silence the butcher. Skinner led the way to the back room where the sausage machine made its home, and Toole carefully closed the door.
“Now,” he said, taking the butcher by the shirtsleeve,” you have had a taste of what comes of taking the political lead away from the party to which it rightly belongs. You have had an experience of what happens when people who know nothing about politics meddle with thing that the natural political leaders should be left to handle. You have been choked, and you have been cheated, and you deserve to be kicked. You pay money to this editor here in town, for an advertisement that you know does you no good, and in return he prints an article to make you laughed at. You form a combination with Guthrie to put in outsiders instead of good party men, and Guthrie uses his pull to have an ordinance passed to make you spend money for fire-extinguishers. You elect a mayor, by your influence as a leading citizen, and he takes a bribe from Guthrie, and passes an ordinance to rob you. And you, like a fool, let him do it. And you let Guthrie, that he may stand in solidly with the very woman you have your eye on, sell you—what? Fire-extinguishers? Not much! Not fire-extinguishers at all, but useless, no-account lung-testers! Lung-testers, that he makes you pay one hundred dollars for, and that you will have to throw away. That is what they are, lung-testers, and you can pocket a loss of one hundred dollars, and buy four real fire-extinguishers now, as the ordinance tells you, and makes you!”
The butcher's mouth opened and his eyes stared. He felt weakly behind him for the edge of the table, pawing uncertainly in the air.
“That's all I have to say to YOU,” said the attorney. “If you like that kind of thing, you are welcome. If you are willing to be cheated it is nothing to me. I don't say T. J. Jones set them up to doing all this, just to throw down your Citizen's Party, but you can see in the TIMES who printed the whole thing. If you like to have that kind of man run your only public journal it is no business of mine, but look out for the next TIMES!”
The butcher had found the edge of the table and was leaning back against it. The attorney paused with his hand on the door.
“You ought to be able to make the Colonel pay you back that hundred dollars,” he said. “It looks as if he had obtained money under false pretenses and given a bribe. But if you don't care, I don't,” and he went out.
Outside of the butcher shop the attorney stopped and looked up and down the street, smiling. He felt that he had done well, so far, setting both the mayor and Skinner against the editor, making a tool of the mayor, and inflaming the butcher against the Colonel. He would have liked to go to the Colonel and set him against the editor and Skinner, but he neither dared nor felt it really necessary. If Skinner attempted to make the Colonel take back the lung-testers the ill feeling between the two would be sufficiently emphasized, and no doubt the Colonel had sufficient reason, in the publication of the article, to hate the editor.
Horsewhipped! His face reddened as he thought of it, but he was too polite to consider a revenge of fists, which would not lessen the insult of the whipping he had received, but would only add the stigma of attacking an older man. That he had led the Colonel into the affair, putting him up to it, did not strike him as being any excuse for the Colonel. He felt that he had done only what he was entitled to do in the pursuit of political leadership. He would revenge himself on the Colonel later. A suit for damages for assault, timed to precede the next election, would be both revenge and politics. He could, at the moment, think of nothing else to do to undermine his opponents, and he had turned toward his office when a fresh idea occurred to him. Should Miss Sally take back the lung-testers, where then would his case stand? Guthrie would return the hundred dollars to Skinner. Skinner was fool enough to be satisfied with that, and Kilo, like many other towns, not wishing to besmirch herself, would hush up the whole affair. Miss Sally must not take back the lung-testers.
The attorney swung around and walked briskly toward Miss Sally's home, tossing tumultuously in his mind the events of the day, his plans and what he would say to Miss Sally. As he turned in at the gate he saw Mrs. Smith and Susan sitting on the porch, and he took off his hat, and walked smilingly up to them.
“Miss Sally in?” he asked, after the customary greetings. “I would like to speak to her if she is.”
“She's in” said Mrs. Smith, “but she is engaged at present. Won't you have a seat and wait?”
Toole passed rapidly through his mind all those who might have business with Miss Sally this morning—the Colonel, Skinner, the editor. It could not be Skinner, for he had just left him, nor the editor, for he knew he was still in his office where he had seen him last. Probably it was the Colonel. He took the proffered seat.
“I suppose you saw the TIMES,” he said, “and that tremendous article. It amused me considerably. Splendid specimen of local journalism. Our friend T. J. is to be congratulated, isn't he? He has made quite a stir.”
“The Colonel was here with a paper,” said Mrs. Smith. “He was furiously angry. I couldn't understand what it was all about, except that it was connected with those fire-extinguishers Miss Sally had.”
“It was about the meanest piece of business I have ever run across,” said the attorney, speaking more to Susan than to Mrs. Smith. “It was the most vindictive thing I ever heard of. Do you know any reason why that editor should want to annoy Miss Briggs?”
“Mr. Jones annoy Miss Sally?” said Susan, with surprise. “I can't imagine why he should.”
“That's what puzzles me,” said Toole. “There doesn't seem to be any reason whatever, except that he is showing his ill-will. It looks like a conspiracy to throw those fire-extinguishers back on Miss Sally's hands. Probably he has taken an agency for fire-extinguishers, or had made a deal to take some in payment for advertising space in his paper, and wants to sell them to Skinner. I understand there is some cock-and-bull story he has got up about these fire-extinguishers being out-of-date, or useless, or something of that kind, and that he means to make a big stir about the council having been bribed to force them on Skinner. I suppose Jones will get something out of it, someway. I understand he means to keep the thing alive in his paper, and throw ridicule on all concerned, until he forces things his way. Probably he has some political object, too. But I think it is bad that he should drag Miss Sally into it. I don't mind his trying to throw mud on me. I can see his reason for that.”
He looked at Susan and smiled.
“I don't understand,” said Mrs. Smith, “I couldn't see that he said anything about you this morning.”
“Not this morning,” said the attorney. “There will be more to follow. Wait until you see the next issue of the representative of a free and untrammeled press. He will serve up all his friends there. I saw him darting around like a hawk-eyed reporter this morning. I went up to plead with him to drop the whole thing, this morning, but he as much as told me to mind my own business. The poor old Colonel was so angry he came at me with a whip—I don't know why—but I did not take the advantage my strength gave me. I can forgive a man who is anger blinded. All I want to do now is to prevent that editor fellow making any more trouble for my friends, if I can. I don't want Miss Sally to TAKE back those fire-extinguishers, and I don't want her to be blackmailed into BUYING them back. I want to put her on her guard against T. J. Jones.”
“This is very kind of you,” said Mrs. Smith.
“She is a friend of yours, and of Miss Susan's,” said the attorney. “That would be reason enough for my doing it.”
The door opened and Eliph' Hewlitt came out of the house, and Toole, who had jumped up, in order to be on the defensive had it been the Colonel, assumed an air of indifference. The book agent hesitated uncertainly, glanced toward Mrs. Smith, felt under his left arm where his sample copy usually reposed, and, not finding it, put on his hat and walked toward the gate. Mrs. Smith sprang from her chair and ran after him. She caught him at the gate and laid her hand on his arm. He turned to face her, and she saw that there were tears in his usually clear eyes. He had put the question to Miss Sally, and the answer had been unfavorable.
The interview had been short and conducted with the utmost propriety, as advised by “Courtship—How to Win the Affections,” and Miss Sally had been kind but firm. The article in the TIMES had, far from turning her against the Colonel, shown her what the Colonel has risked for her sake, and she had decided in his favor, although he had not yet appeared to claim an answer to the question he had never asked, but had been hinting for years.
The attorney, when Eliph' walked down the path to the gate, entered the house, and found Miss Sally still sitting in the dark parlor where she had had the painful interview with Eliph' Hewlitt. She still held her handkerchief to her eyes, for she had been weeping, and the attorney was not sorry to see this evidence of the stress of her interview with the book agent. Certain that Eliph' had told Doc Weaver of the lung-testers, he was no less certain that the book agent had been telling Miss Sally that the nickel-plated affairs would be thrown back on her hands, and he hastened to urge resistance.
“Miss Briggs,” he said, “I came right in, because I knew what that book agent was here to say to you, and I wanted to warn you against him. I know what he asked, and I hope you refuse him.”
Miss Sally gasped.
“I believe,” continued the attorney, taking a seat, “that you refused, because you know which side your bread is buttered on. I believe that before the day is over Colonel Guthrie will come with the same question, and I want you to give him the same answer. And if Skinner should come on his knees, I want you to send him away with the same answer, too. They will all have arguments enough, but don't be fooled. They money is all they want.”
Miss Sally gasped again. She was astounded.
“I could see,” said the attorney, confidentially, “that you have the book agent a pretty sharp answer, and that was right. He had no business to put himself forward at all, and I don't suppose you can guess why he did.”
“He said he liked me,” said Miss Sally weakly, ashamed to mention the word openly. The attorney laughed.
“My opinion is that it is an conspiracy,” he said. “That is just the word, a conspiracy, and T. J. Jones is at the head of it. The book agent has come first; now the Colonel will come; and then Skinner, all asking the same thing, but my idea is that they are all in partnership, and that Jones is engineering the whole thing. They want your money, and that is all they want, and once they get it they will be happy and you will be left with four lung-testers on your hands.”
Even in Kilo slang comes and goes as in the rest of the world and Miss Sally was not sure about the word “lung-tester.” It had a slangy sound, and it must be a term of reproach applied to the future value of the four men Toole had mentioned. She accepted it as such.
“All I have to say,” continued the attorney, “is to refuse the Colonel, and to refuse Skinner if he comes, just as you have refused this book agent. Stick up for your rights. If they want to sue you, let them sue. You have the money now, and it is better to have that than a lot of good-for-nothing lung-testers. Once you get them on your hands you'll never get rid of them.”
He arose and took up his hat.
“That is all I have to say,” he said, “but I wanted to let you know what you ought to do. Don't mind if there is a lot of stuff published in the TIMES. You have to expect that, and Jones will probably drag your name into it, in connection with the Colonel and Skinner, but you are perfectly innocent and they can do nothing to you.”
He went out, and Miss Sally remained in a daze, looking at the door by which he had gone. She was still looking at it helplessly when Mrs. Tarbro-Smith came in with a swish of skirts and put her arm gently about her.
“DO you think you did what your heart told you to do, dear?” asked the lady from New York, kissing Miss Sally on the brow. “He was SO downcast. I really pitied him, poor man.”
Miss Sally threw her arms around Mrs. Smith's waist and hit her face in the lacy softness of her gown, and wept. The authoress smoothed the brown hair and waited patiently for the tears to cease.
“Did you see Mr. Toole?” she asked brightly, to ease Miss Sally's weeping and to turn her thought to other things. “He wanted to see you about those fire-extinguishers. But I don't trust him. I think he has some plan or other that is selfish. I think he had been drinking.”
Miss Sally's tears ceased, and she sat up, straight and severe.
“Fire-extinguishers?” she asked quickly.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Smith; “he seemed to think Skinner or the Colonel or someone would want you to take them back. And return the money, I suppose.”
“The money?” echoed Miss Sally slowly. She blushed as she saw that she had misunderstood the attorney, thinking he had dared to advise in her love matters, and then she frowned. “The money?” she repeated. “But I gave that money to pa. Pa won't ever give that money back, never! I don't know where on earth I'd ever get sixty dollars.”
As she spoke she heard someone on the walk, and then the heavy feet of the Colonel climbing the porch steps. She heard him ask Susan if Miss Sally was inside, and heard the girl answer that she was, and she held Mrs. Smith's hand tighter.
“Come in,” she called, to the knock on the door, and the Colonel stumped into the room. He was hot and angry, so angry that he did not stop to offer his usual curt greetings.
“Look here,” he said, by way of introduction, “you an' your fire-extinguishers has got me into a purty fix, Sally Briggs—a blame purty fix-an' I want to know do you intend to git me out or not? I don't want no foolishness. Skinner is after me an' I've got to pay him back them sixty dollars, or somebody'll go to jail for it. You ought to have knowed them wasn't nothin' but lung-testers, afore you set me up to sellin' 'em to Skinner, an' not let me go an' make a 'tarnal fool out of myself. But that ain't the thing now; the thing is, will you pay back them sixty dollars? I guess you'd better do it, an' do it quick. Skinner'll have the law on ye if ye don't.”
Miss Sally drew back toward Mrs. Smith as he scowled at her.
“Now, you git them sixty dollars an' hand 'em over to me, that's what you'd better do,” said the Colonel. “I want to git shut of this business. I was a fool fer meddlin' in a woman's affairs in the fust place. I don't want to have no more hand in it. You git me that money, an' let me fix it up with Skinner. He's mad, an' he won't stand no foolin'. It was all I could do to keep him from comin' in an' makin' a row right here in the house. He's waitin' at the gate till he sees if I git the money, an' if I don't——”
“But I haven't got sixty dollars,” Miss Sally gasped. “I gave that money to pa. I don't know whether I can GET sixty dollars out of pa.”
She was so helpless that Mrs. Smith's blood boiled at the rude brutality of the Colonel, and she stepped forward and faced him.
“What is all this about?” she asked. “What is the matter with those fire-extinguishers? Why do you come bothering Miss Sally this way? Why don't you settle it with Mr. Skinner yourself?”
“The matter is, them ain't fire-extinguishers at all,” said the Colonel rudely, “an' wasn't, an' never was. Them things is lung-testers, an' Sally was cheatin' Skinner when she sold 'em to him. An' the reason I'm botherin' her is that she got the money fer 'em, an' she's got to find it somehow an' pay it back. An' as for me settlin' with Skinner, I ain't got nothin' to do with it. I wasn't nothin' but Sally's agent. I done her a favor, an' that's all, an' I'm sorry I ever meddled in it.”
“But there certainly can't be such haste needed,” said Mrs. Smith. “Miss Sally is not going to run away. Mr. Skinner is not going to fail for want of sixty dollars, is he? You can wait until to-morrow, or to-night, when Miss Sally can see her father.”
“No, I can't,” said the Colonel doggedly. “I can't wait at all. By to-morrow mornin' that newspaper feller will have another paper printed up, an' I hear tell he's goin' to give us all plain names, an' I ain't goin' to wait. I want to git this thing fixed up right now. If Sally ain't got sixty dollars, let her go borry it. I got to pay Skinner right now, an' I want Sally to pay me. I want to git shut of this.”
“I don't believe Mr. Skinner is in any such hurry as you pretend!” exclaimed Mrs. Smith. “I don't believe he is so ungenerous. I believe he is more chivalrous, I believe HE will have some manliness, if you have not.”
She started for the door, but the Colonel grasped her by the arm.
“Hold on, here!” he said, but Mrs. Tarbro-Smith merely raised her eyebrows and looked, first at his hand on her arm, and then at his face, and his hand fell. He stood irresolute and uncomfortable as she went to the door and called to Mr. Skinner. The butcher walked up to the door, clearing his throat as he came. Mrs. Smith held the screen door wide for him to enter, and he walked into the parlor, holding his hat in his hands, and stood uneasily.
“The Colonel,” said Mrs. Smith pleasantly, “has told us you wish Miss Sally to return the money you paid for what she supposed were fire-extinguishers.”
“They was nothin' but lung-testers,” said the butcher.
“So it seems,” said Mrs. Smith, “and it is odd that a man of business like yourself should not know it in the first place. But of course Miss Sally did not know what they were. Who told you they were fire-extinguishers, Sally?”
“The Colonel,” said Miss Sally, and the Colonel moved his feet uneasily.
“Indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Smith, giving the Colonel another of her paralyzing glances. “But Miss Sally will do whatever is right. She hasn't the money at this moment. You can wait until to-morrow for the sixty dollars, can you not, until she can see her father?”
The butcher grew red in the face, redder than his naturally high coloring, but he shook his head.
“I want it now,” he said. “Business is business.” And after a moment he added, “It wasn't sixty, it was one hundred. Four at twenty-five, that's one hundred. One hundred dollars, that was what I handed Guthrie. I paid one hundred and I want one hundred back.”
Miss Sally and Mrs. Smith looked at the Colonel.
“I had a right to make a commission,” he blustered. “I ain't no sich fool as to do business fer other folks an' lose time by it. I took out a commission, an' I had a right to, an' I don't want to hear no more about it. A commission's fair.”
“You didn't say anything about it,” said poor Miss Sally. “Mrs. Smith was just surprised to learn of it.”
“Surprised, my dear?” said Mrs. Smith, “No, indeed. Nothing that man would do could quite surprise me. But forty percent commission! Miss Sally hasn't sixty dollars in the house,” she added, turning to the butcher. “You know very well people here don't have so much in the house at one time. If I had it I would gladly lend it to her, but I don't happen to have so much with me to-day. You can wait until Mr. Briggs gets back from Clarence, or you can do what you please.”
“I want the money,” said Skinner doggedly.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Smith. “Collect forty from the Colonel. That will keep you from starving until to-morrow. And now will you both kindly leave the house?”
“Now, look here, Mrs. Smith, ma'm,” said the butcher. “You ain't got any right to talk that way to me. Money matters is money matters, and a man has a right to look after his own the best way he can. I was cheated out of one hundred dollars by this man and Miss Sally, as easy as you please, and there's bribery in it, and land knows what. But I ain't mean. All I want is my money back, and I want it now. I hear T. J. Jones is going to get out an extry to-morrow morning all about this, and all I want is to do what is right. Hand me back my hundred dollars, and I'll go to T. J. and explain that Miss Sally did what was right, and tell him to leave her out of what he writes, but if I don't get the money I won't say a word to him. He can guess all he wants about Miss Sally and the Colonel being in cahoots with this bribe business. All I want is my money.”
“But I say you shall have it in the morning.”
“Well, I don't count much on what you'll get out of Pap Briggs. You might get ten cents, if he was feeling liberal, but he don't usually feel that way. What I want is one hundred dollars right now. I don't need no lung-testers, and I've been cheated, and I won't wait. If Miss Sally ain't going to pay me, I'll see what the law says about it.”
“Mr. Skinner,” said Mrs. Smith, “in consideration that Miss Sally is a lady and that you are a gentleman, will you not wait till to-morrow?”
“Business is business,” he said flatly. “When I'm sellin' meat I ain't a gentleman, I'm a butcher; and when Miss Briggs was sellin' lung-testers she wasn't a lady, she was in business. Business is one thing an' bein' pleasant is another. I've got to look after my money or I soon won't have any.”
When the two men went out Mrs. Smith could hear them begin to wrangle even before they quitted the yard, but she was more interested in what might happen to Miss Sally through the vindictiveness of the butcher. She was surprised to hear that T. J. Jones had even thought of such a thing as bringing Miss Sally's name into the matter as a conspirator, and she did not know enough about Iowa laws to know whether the butcher could take any summary action or not. The most satisfactory way to straighten things out would be to pay the butcher, but it must be done at once. She pleaded with Miss Sally to remember someone of whom she could borrow sixty dollars, but Miss Sally confessed that she knew no one who would be apt to lend so much. She even expressed her doubt that her father would ever release the money she had given him. The two women sat in the darkened parlor, Miss Sally weeping softly and Mrs. Smith thinking hard. The authoress was ashamed that she could devise no way to aid her friend, and there they sat, exchanging a brief word from time to time, and the gloom deepening every minute. Presently, when the atmosphere was so charged with sadness that it was almost too thick to breathe, Mrs. Smith called to Susan, and the girl came in.
“Sue,” said Mrs. Smith, “will you run down to the TIMES office and see Mr. Jones? And—let me see—and tell him I very much want to see him before he begins to print his extra. You won't mind, will you?”
“Oh, no,” said Susan cheerfully, and she went, a fairy in filmy white, while the two women relapsed into gloom again.
So softly did the next comer mount the porch stairs that the two women did not hear him until a gentle tap on the door frame, followed by an apologetic cough, announced the return of Eliph' Hewlitt.
When Eliph' Hewlitt, sad at heart, departed from his disastrous interview with Miss Sally, he felt, for the first time in his life, a doubt as to the infallibility of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art. Here was a book he had praised, sold and believed, and it had failed him. Here was a book that was proclaimed, in the “Advice to Agents,” to be so simply written and so easy of understanding that a child could follow its directions as well as a man, and it had only led him to defeat. He had courted according to “Courtship”; he had tried to win the affections according to “How to Win” them, and instead of the “Yes” that Jarby's book led him to believe he would receive, he had been given a “No.” This, then, was the book whose success he had made his life work! Caesar, when he saw Brutus draw his dagger, was wounded no more in spirit than Eliph' Hewlitt was now.
The world seemed to slip from beneath his feet; his firmest foundation seemed to have crumbled away; his best friend seemed to have turned false. As he walked toward Doc Weaver's house he decided what he would do: he would go to his room and tear his sample copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art to scraps and throw them out upon the wind; he would write to Jarby & Goss and resign his commission; he would have Irontail hitched to his buggy and leave Kilo at once and forever, and from some other town he would write to G. P. Hicks & Co., and solicit the agency for Hicks' Facts for the Million, a book he had heretofore hated and despised. All this he resolved to do, and yet here he was again at Miss Sally's door, and the sample copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art was under his arm!
Mrs. Tarbro-Smith, when she saw Eliph' Hewlitt at the door, uttered a little cry of joy and darted toward him. She put her finger to her lips and slipped out of the door and drew him to the seat that had once been a church pew, but was now doing duty as a garden-seat under an apple tree in the side yard. On Eliph's face was no longer the care-worn expression of the rejected lover, but the full glow of confidence, radiating from between his side-whiskers.
Mrs. Smith bent confidentially toward him, and laid one hand on the copy of Jarby's, which he had placed across his knees. In quick, crowding words she bade him hope—which wasn't necessary—and told him of the coming of Guthrie and Skinner, and of their demands. She laid before him all she knew of the affair of the fire-extinguishers, of the horror of the threatened legal attack on Miss Sally, and the disgrace that would overwhelm her should T. J. Jones publish an article mentioning her name. Eliph' Hewlitt must prevent the publication of the article; he must save Miss Sally.
The book agent was willing. As the appeal was spoken his eyes brightened and the book agent instinct—the instinct that knows no defeat, but will talk a book into any man's library, or die in the attempt—flowed full and free through his soul. Mrs. Smith saw him take fire, and she ventured the question she had been leading up to.
“Now, Mr. Hewlitt,” she said, “I have sent for Mr. Jones, and I will do what I can to persuade him not to publish the article. I depend on you to do what you can in that, too, but I am going to trespass on your good nature in another thing also. It is something I know Miss Sally would never allow me to ask, and I myself would not ask it but that I happen to be waiting for a check from my publisher, and am quite out of funds at the moment. I am going to ask you to lend me sixty dollars! Not for myself, but to me. I believe Miss Sally would be willing to borrow it of me, and I know, dear Mr. Hewlitt, you will be willing to lend it to me.”
Eliph' coughed softly behind his hand.
“Gladly!” he said. “Gladly any amount. I have quite a little money laid away, quite a little; some thousands, in fact; I might be called a wealthy man—in Kilo. And it would be a pleasure, a real pleasure, to spend all for Miss Sally. She is a fine woman, Mrs. Smith. I admire her.”
“I knew I could depend on YOU,” said Mrs. Smith, putting her white hand on his scarcely less white one.
“But I can appreciate Miss Sally's-ah-maidenly dislike, in fact, her quite proper dislike of a loan from-ah-one who aspires—— In fact,” he said, boldly breaking away from all attempt to speak bookishly, “from me. She don't want to borrow from me, and it would be the same thing if you borrowed for her from me. The same thing. I am courting Miss Sally, and such a loan would be irregular. There is nothing, Mrs. Smith, in the chapter on 'Courtship—How to Win the Affections,' et cetery, about loaning money to the lady. It would derange the directions given in this book, which is——”
“I don't want to hear about the book,” said Mrs. Smith with annoyance. “I know all about the book. So you refuse to lend me sixty dollars? You, like these other men, are willing to desert Miss Sally at a time like this?”
“No,” said the book agent. “Not desert. Rescue. Rescue her from the hands of these—these men. Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art should be in every home, in every store, in every office. To be without it is to be like a rudderless air ship tossed by the waves of the relentless ocean. It contains a fact for every day in the year, for every moment of life, any one of which is worth the price of the book many times over. This book,” he said—and then his eyes, which had been gazing far into the sky over Miss Sally's house, returned to the eyes of Mrs. Smith—“I am going to sell Mr. Skinner a copy of this book.”
In spite of her disappointment in him, Mrs. Smith, the authoress, felt a thrill of pleasure in the discovery of such an admirable type—a book agent who could see in the midst of love, courtship, conspiracy and trouble only his book and a chance to sell it. But she was deeply disappointed.
“Then you desert Miss Sally,” she repeated sadly.
“Mrs. Smith.” Said Eliph', reaching into his pocket and laying a handful of thick greasy manila envelopes in her lap, “these are my bank books. Six, containing the sum of seventeen thousand four hundred and eighty-two dollars and forty-six cents, and all this I lay at Miss Sally's feet if I do not succeed in selling a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia this afternoon. If sold, the matter is settled.”
When Eliph' reached the business part of Main Street he turned into Skinner's butcher shop and halted at the counter. The butcher was at work in the back room, and he put his head out and, seeing who had called, shook it.
“No books,” he said shortly. “I never buy books. I didn't buy them Sir Walter Scotts even. No books.”
Eliph' coughed his deprecatory little cough and walked behind the counter and to the door of the back room.
“So I understood,” he said. “I heard at Franklin that you didn't buy books; it was mentioned to me that I would be wasting my time in calling on you. They said you was known all over the State as not buying books, and many admired your self-restraint in not buying. They said it was wonderful. That's why I never called on you to buy. But I didn't come to sell you a book. I wanted to ask if you knew William Rossiter?”
“William Rossiter?” asked Skinner, perplexed, coming out of the back room. “Who's William Rossiter?”
Eliph' laid his book on the chopping block.
“William Rossiter, agent,” he said. “He was here once. He was the man that stopped with Miss Sally Briggs a while. I thought maybe you knew him. He's dead. I thought maybe you'd be interested to know it.”
A light dawned on the butcher. William Rossiter must have been the man that left the lung-testers at Miss Sally's.
“I'm glad he's dead,” he said. “I don't know anybody I'd sooner have it happen to.”
“Don't say that!” exclaimed Eliph'. “If you only knew how he died, poor young man, you wouldn't say it. He burned to death.”
“Well,” said the butcher, “I don't know as I care how he died. I can't say I'm sorry. I guess he cost me a hundred dollars. I've got to go to law for it if I ever want to see it again. I guess he deserved to die, for the trouble he has made in this town.”
Eliph' placed his hand on the sample copy of Jarby's.
“I will tell you how he died,” he said briskly.
“No, you won't,” said Skinner angrily, waving his hand toward the door; “you won't tell me nothin'. I've heard of these stories of yours, I have. You want to sell me one of them books, and you'll talk away at me about this Rossiter feller, and the first thing I know you'll have me down for a book. But you won't, for if you don't get right out of that door I'm goin' to put you out.”
“All right,” said Eliph' cheerfully, picking up his book, “if that's the way you feel about it I won't take up your time telling you about it I won't take up your time telling you about Bill Rossiter. Only I thought you'd like to know how it happened he was burned up in a theater when there was two dozen as good fire-extinguishers, right at hand, as there is in the world. But I won't intrude. I know myself too well, and I know I might happen to get to talking books before I thought. You see,” he said, as if apologizing for himself, “I can't forget how this book saved my life, and might have saved the life of Bill Rossiter, too, if he had had a copy, the price being only five dollars, bound in cloth, one dollar down and one dollar a month until paid.”
“There,” said Skinner, as if Eliph' had offended him, “you are talkin' books right now, like I said you would.”
“Was I?” asked Eliph'. “And all I started out to say was that I met Bill Rossiter in St. Louis just after he had run away from here. He told me all about it, and wept on my shoulder as he told me how it pained him to have to skip that way. He said it wasn't as if he could have left Miss Briggs anything that she could use, but-lung-testers! He asked me what a town like Kilo could do with lung-testers, and he felt awful about it. Said he couldn't bear to look at a lung-tester any more, they made him feel so ashamed, and what made it all the worse was that he had to look at them all day.”
“I should think they would,” said the butcher heartily. “It makes me sick to see them. But why did he do it if he didn't like it?”
“I was just going to tell you that,” said Eliph', putting down his book again. “You see, when he left here he went right to St. Louis, that being where his home was, and that was how he happened to have lung-testers with him when he was here. His father made them. That was his father's business. He was in the lung-tester manufacturing business. So when Bill Rossiter left here he went right home to his father, which was the wise thing to do.”
“Went home to sponge on the old man, I suppose,” said Skinner.
“Just so,” agreed Eliph', “and that was how I happened to meet him. There was a man there in St. Louis by the name of Hopper-Darius Hopper-and he owned the Imperial Theater and Museum. He was an old friend of mine, and I had sold him a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art away back in 1874, and as soon as he heard I was stopping in St. Louis he sent around to the hotel and begged me to come around to the museum and give readings out of Jarby's to the people that come into the museum. He said that it would draw bigger crowds in a cultured city like St. Louis than would come to see a two-headed calf or a fat women's race, being a course of readings that would instruct, entertain and please, and he asked me to name my own price.”
“I should call him a fool,” said Skinner scornfully.
“He wasn't,” said Eliph'. “It took splendid. But I wouldn't let him pay me a cent. I said I considered it my sacred duty to make as many people as I could love and know Jarby's, and that I was doing my best to better the world that way, and was glad to do it free gratis, because in a big place like St. Louis there were many that could not afford even the small price of one dollar down and one dollar a month, which is all that is asked for this splendid volume, containing all the wisdom of the world, from the earliest days to the present time, neatly bound in cloth, and I felt I was helping the cause of progress by reading them a few chapters. I began at page one,” continued Eliph', opening the book in his hands, “skipping the allegorical frontispiece in three colors, and the index in which ten thousand——-”
“I thought you was goin' to tell me about William Rossiter,” said the butcher suspiciously.
“So I am,” said Eliph'. “William Rossiter was on the third floor of the Theater and Museum building, for that was the job his father hunted up for him. William was in charge of the penny-in-the-slot machines of all kinds, a full description of which will be found in this book under the head of 'Machines, Automatic,' including a description of how made, how to use and how to repair. In fact, there is nothing in the way of information, from how to tell the weight of a baby by measuring its waist, to the age, size and history of the immortal pyramids of Egypt, one of the seven wonders of the world, that this book does not contain. It interests alike the student and the business man. And,” he continued quickly as Skinner was about to interrupt him, “among the slot machines of which William Rossiter had charge were twenty-four lung-testers.”
“Twenty-four!” exclaimed Skinner. “Them St. Louis folks must like to test their lungs!”
“No,” said Eliph', “they don't, and that is what makes me feel so bad about William Rossiter. The St Louis people didn't care for lung-testers at all. They crowded pennies into all the other machines, but they would just go up to the lung-testers and sort of sniff at them, and walk away without trying them. So there those twenty-four lung-testers stood, useless to man and beast, all in a row, doing nobody any good, and there I was on the floor below reading out of a book that would have told Bill Rossiter how to make those lung-testers worth their weight in gold, and would have saved his life. And to think he could have bought this book for the small nominal sum of——”
“You said that once,” said Skinner. “Five dollars; one dollar down, and one dollar a month until paid.”
“Bound in cloth,” said Eliph'. “Seven fifty if in morocco leather. So at the very minute that the fire broke out——”
“Fire!” said Skinner; “what fire? You didn't say anything about a fire.”
“The fire in the theater and museum,” said Eliph'. “It started right on the stairs between the second and third floors, and the old building flared up like dry paper. Two or three men that was trying the slot machines saw the smoke and run for the lung-testers, thinking by the look they were fire-extinguishers, which was the most natural mistake in the world. The looks of them would fool anybody, but they were lung-testers, and there that old building was, with twenty-four lung-testers in it, and not one fire-extinguisher. After that fire they passed an ordinance compelling every theater to have four fire-extinguishers.”
“And do they have them?” asked Skinner.
“Every first-class theater and opera house does, all over the United States,” said Eliph'. “But the odd thing was that at the very moment the fire broke out I had this book open at page 416, 'Fire—Its Traditions—How to Make a Fire Without Matches—Fire Fighting—Fire Extinguishers, How Made.' I was reading to those people how to make fire-extinguishers at home out of common chemicals and any suitable nickel-plated can, that would be as good as the best sold in any store, and right as I read it I thought how easy it would be for any man or child to turn those twenty-four useless lung-testers on the third floor into first-class fire-extinguishers, by following the simple directions set down on page 418, at a cost of only about twenty-six cents each——”
Skinner held out his hand for the book.
“Let me have a look at that book,” he said.
Eliph' picked up the book and tucked it under his arm.
“And at that minute came the cry of 'Fire!'” he said. “And I thought of poor Bill Rossiter up there on the third floor, shut off from all hope of rescue——-”
Skinner reached down to his cash drawer and pulled it open. He took out a dollar bill and held it toward Eliph'. The book agent ignored it.
“Think of it,” he said. “Bill Rossiter on the third floor, burning up, and me on the floor below with this book in my hand reading off of page 418 the names of the simple ingredients that would——”
“Mebby I might as well pay the whole five right now,” said Skinner, taking four more dollars out of his drawer. “Could you leave that book with me?”
“I will, as a special favor,” said Eliph'.
“Well, say,” said Skinner, “I'll be mortally obliged to you if you will. It will take a mighty load off of my mind.”
And when Eliph' left the butcher shop he had, for the first time in his life, sold his sample copy.