“The duff puncher wakin’ up,” sneered Smallbones, angrily.
“Guess it’s your voice hurtin’ my ear drums,” replied Jake, ponderously.
At that moment Abe Horsley joined the group. He called for drinks before adding his bit to the talk. He had an axe to grind and wanted a sympathetic audience. While Rocket, observing his customers with shrewd unfriendly eyes, set out the glasses and the accompanying bottles–he never needed to inquire what these men would take; he knew the tipple of every soul in Barnriff by heart–Abe opened out. He was unctuous and careful of his diction. He was Barnriff’s lay-preacher, and felt that this attitude was “up to him.”
“I do sure agree with the generality of opinion in this yer city,” he said largely. “I consider that the largeness of heart for which our brothers in this important town–it has a great future, gentlemen, believe me; I mention this in parenthesis–are held in excellent esteem–” He broke off to nod to Jim Thorpe who entered the saloon at that moment–“should be–er fostered. I think, brethren–pardon me, ‘gentlemen’–that we should give, and give liberally to Sally Morby, but–but I do not see why Doc Crombie should make the occasion the opportunity for a speech. Any of us could do it quite as well. Perhaps, who knows, some of us even better–”
“Smallbones,” murmured the dissatisfied Wilkes, drinking his gin at a gulp.
“Yes, even Smallbones,” shrugged Abe, sipping his whiskey.
Angel Gay bolted his whiskey and laid a gentle hand firmly on Horsley’s shoulder.
“No,” he said, “not Smallbones; not even Doc Crombie, both deadgut fellers sure. But you are the man, Abe. For elegance o’ langwidge, an’ flow–mark you–you–you are a born speaker, sure. Say, I believe that rye of Rocket’s was in a gin bottle. It tasted like–like–”
“Have another?” suggested Abe, cordially.
“I won’t say ‘no,’” Gay promptly acquiesced.
But Rocket was serving drink to Jim Thorpe at one of the little poker tables on the far side of the room, and the butcher had to wait.
“How much are you givin’?” Smallbones inquired cautiously of Gay.
He was still worrying over the forthcoming demand on his charity. Gay Promptly puffed himself up.
“Wal,” he said, with some dignity. “Y’see she’s got six kiddies, each smaller nor the other. They mustn’t starve for sure. Guess I’m givin’ twenty-fi’ dollars.”
“Wot?” almost shrieked the disgusted Smallbones.
“Yes,” said the butcher-undertaker coldly. “An’ I ain’t no trust magnate.”
“That’s right up to you, Smallbones,” remarked Abe, passing his friend Gay his drink. “You’ll natcherly give fifty.”
But Abe’s ponderous levity was too much for Smallbones.
“An’ if I did it wouldn’t be in answer to the hogwash preachin’ you ladle out. Anyways I’ll give as it pleases me.”
“Then I guess them kiddies’ll starve, sure,” remarked Wilkes heavily.
How much further the ruffled tempers of these men might have been tried it is impossible to say, but at that moment a diversion was created by the advent of the redoubtable doctor. And it was easy to see at a glance how it was this man was able to sway the Barnriff crowd. He was an aggressive specimen of unyielding force, lean, but powerful of frame, with the light of overwhelming determination in a pair of swift, bright eyes.
He glanced round the vast dingy bar-room. There were two tables of poker going in opposite corners of the room, and a joyous collection of variegated uncleanness “bucking” a bank in another corner. Then there was the flower of Barnriff propping up the bar like a row of daisies in a window box–only they lacked the purity of that simple flower. He stepped at once to the centre of the room.
“Boys,” he said in a hoarse, rasping voice, “I’m in a hurry. Guess natur’ don’t wait fer nuthin’ when she gits busy on matters wot interest her; an’ seein’ Barnriff needs all the population that’s comin’ to it with so energetic a funeral maker as our friend, Angel Gay, around, I’ll git goin’. I’m right here fer dollars fer pore Sally Morby. She’s broke, dead broke, an’ she’s got six kiddies, all with their pore little bellies flappin’ in the wind for want of a squar’ feed. Say, I ain’t hyar to git gassin’, I ain’t hyar to make flowery talk fer the sake o’ them pore kiddies. I’m here to git dollars, an’ I’m goin’ to git ’em. Cents won’t do. Come on. Ther’s six pore kiddles, six pore lone little kiddies with their faces gapin’ fer food like a nest o’ unfledged chicks in the early frosts o’ spring. Now every mother’s son o’ you ‘ante’ right here. Natur’ busy or no natur’ busy, I don’t quit till you’ve dipped into your wads. Now you, Smallbones,” he cried, fixing the little man with his desperate eyes. “How much?”
Every eye was on the trust manipulator. He hated it. He hated them all, but Doc Crombie most of all. But the tall, lean man was impatient. He knew it was a race between him and a baby in a distant quarter of the village.
“How much?” he threatened the hesitating man.
“A dollar,” Smallbones muttered in the midst of profound silence. Even the chips of the poker players had ceased to rattle.
A faint light of amusement crept into every eye, every eye except the doctor’s.
Suddenly his lean figure pounced forward and stood before the beflustered speaker.
“I said ‘how much?’” he rasped, “’cause Barnriff knows its manners. Wal, the social etiquette o’ Barnriff is satisfied, so I ken talk straight. Say, you an’ me have piled a tidy heap in this yer city, so I guess you’re goin’ to match my hundred dollars right here. An’ I tel you squar’, an’ I’m a man o’ my word, if you don’t you’ll get a bath in Rocket’s hoss-trough which’ll do you till the next Presidential Election–if it pizens every hoss for miles around Barnriff. Guess I’ll take that hundred dollars.”
And he did. The furious Smallbones “weighed out” amid a circle of smiles, which suddenly seemed to light up the entire bar-room. Nor had he a single spoken word of protest. But he yielded himself up to the demands of the masterful doctor only to save himself the ducking he was certain awaited his refusal.
The rest was play to Doc Crombie. As he had pointed out, Barnriff’s social demands had been satisfied by his giving Smallbones the option of stating the amount of his contribution, and, as the result had not come up to requirements, he dispensed with further delicacy, and assessed each man present with the cool arbitrariness of a Socialist Chancellor. But in this case the process was not without justification. He knew just how much each man could afford, and he took not one cent more–or less.
This fact was exampled when he came to Jim’s table. Jim looked up from his cards. He understood Crombie.
“Well, Doc,” he said, “how much?”
Crombie eyed him with shrewd amusement.
“Wal, Jim, I’ll take on’y ten dollars from you, seein’s your contrac’s out for buildin’, an’ you need ev’rything that’s comin’ your way.”
Jim laughed. It was a boisterous laugh that had little mirth in it.
“Guess I’ll treble that,” he said. “I’ve cut the contract.”
But the laugh had irritated the doctor.
“I’ll take ten from you;” he said, with an incisive clipping of his teeth. “Not a cent more, nor a cent less.”
And Jim yielded to him promptly. The doctor passed on. Neither he nor those around him had understood the bitter humor underlying Jim’s laugh. Only, perhaps, Peter Blunt, who had entered the room with Will Henderson a moment or two before, and whose sympathetic ears had caught the sound, could possibly