T. BRITT STARTS TO COLLECT
Tasper Britt arose in the gray dawn, as usual.
Some fishermen, seeking bait, stay up late and “jack” angleworms with
a bull's-eye light. The big worms are abroad on the soil under cover
of the darkness. Other fishermen get up early and dig while the dew is
holding the smaller worms near the surface of the ground; in going after
worms the shrewd operator makes the job easy for himself.
Tasper Britt--“Twelve-per-cent Britt”--trimmed his slumber at both
ends--was owl and early bird, both, in his pursuit of the pence of the
people, and got 'em coming and going.
He was the money boss for the town of Egypt, and those who did not give
him his per cent nickname called him “Phay-ray-oh”--but behind his back,
of course. To his face his debt slaves bespoke his favor obsequiously.
Seeing that nearly every “Egyptian” with collateral owed him money, Mr.
Britt had no fault to find with his apparent popularity. He did believe,
complacently, that he was popular. A man who was less sure of himself
would not have dared to appear out, all at once, with his beard dyed
purple-black and with a scratch wig to match. Men gasped when they came
into his office in Britt Block, but men held their faces measurably
under control even though their diaphragms fluttered; the need of
renewing a note--paying a bonus for the privilege--helped supplicants
to hold in any bubbling hilarity. Therefore, Mr. Britt continued to be
assured that he was pretty generally all right, so far as the folks of
Egypt were concerned.
Mr. Britt dyed after Hittie died. That was when he was past sixty-five.
It was only the familiar, oft-repeated instance of temperament being
jounced out of a lifelong rut by a break in wedlock relations.
Hittie was his yoke-mate, pulling hard at his side with wages of food
and drink. The two of them kept plodding steadily in the dry and rocky
road all the years, never lifting their eyes to look over into pastures
forbidden. Perhaps if Hittie had been left with the money, after the
yoke had been sundered, she would have kicked up her heels in a few
final capers of consolation, in order to prove to herself, by brief
experience, how much better consistent sainthood was as a settled state.
In view of such a possibility--and widows are not altogether different
from widowers--it was hardly fair in the folks of Egypt to twist every
act of Widower Britt to his discredit and to make him out a renegade of
a relict. He did go through all the accepted motions as a mourner. He
took on “something dreadful” at the funeral. He placed in the cemetery
lot a granite statue of himself, in a frock coat of stone and holding a
stone plug hat in the hook of the elbow. That statue cost Tasper Britt
rising sixteen hundred dollars--and after he dyed his beard and bought
the top piece of hair, the satirists of Egypt were unkind enough to say
that he had set his stone image out in the graveyard to scare Hittie if
she tried to arise and spy on his new carryings-on.
Mr. Britt had continued to be a consistent mourner, according to the
old-fashioned conventions.
When he arose in the dawn of the day with which the tale begins and
unwound a towel from his jowls--for the new Magnetic Hair Restorer had
an ambitious way of touching up the pillow-slip with color--he beheld
a memento, composed of assembled objects, “sacred to the memory of
Mehitable.” In a frame, under glass, on black velvet were these items:
silver plate from casket, hair switch, tumbler and spoon with which
the last medicine had been administered, wedding ring and marriage
certificate; photograph in center. The satirists had their comment for
that memento--they averred that it was not complete without the two dish
towels to which Hittie had been limited.
Mr. Britt inspected the memento and sighed; that was before he had
touched up his beard with a patent dye comb.
After he had set the scratch wig on his glossy poll and had studied
himself in the mirror he looked more cheerful and pulled a snapshot
photograph from a bureau drawer, gazed on it and sighed again. It was
the picture of a girl, a full-length view of a mighty pretty girl whose
smiling face was backed by an open sunshade. She was in white garb and
wore no hat.
“Vona,” said Mr. Britt, talking out as if the sound of his voice
fortified his faith, “you're going to see this thing in the right way,
give you time. I'm starting late--but I'm blasted wide awake from now
on. I have gone after money, but money ain't everything. I reckon that
by to-night I can show you honors that you'll share with me--they've
been waiting for me, and now I'll reach out and take 'em for your sake.
Hittie didn't know what to do with money--honors would have bothered
her. But with a girl like you I can grab in and relish living for the
rest of this life.”
Then Mr. Britt went over to the tavern to get his breakfast.
By eating his three meals per day at the tavern he was indulging his new
sense of liberty. He and Hittie always used to eat in the kitchen--meals
on the dot, as to time. The tavern was little and dingy, and Egypt was
off the railroad line, and there were few patrons, and old Files cut his
steak very close to the critter's horn. But after the years of routine
at a home table there was a sort of clubman, devil-may-care suggestion
about this new regime at the tavern; and after his meals Britt sat in
the tavern office and smoked a cigar. Furthermore, he held a mortgage
on the tavern and Files was behind on the interest and was eagerly and
humbly glad to pay his creditor with food. In order to impress a peddler
or other transient guest the creditor was in the habit of calling in
Files and ordering him to recook portions.
In his new sense of expansion as a magnate, Tasper Britt took his time
about eating and allowed men with whom he had dealings to come into the
dining room and sit down opposite and state their cases.
That morning Ossian Orne came in and sat at the table without asking for
permission to be admitted to such intimacy. He came with the air of a
man who was keeping an appointment, and Mr. Britt's manner of greeting
Orne showed that this was so.
Mr. Orne did not remove the earlapper cap which the nippy February day
demanded; nor did he shuck off the buffalo coat whose baldness in the
rear below the waistline suggested the sedentary habits of Mr. Orne.
He selected a doughnut from the plate at Britt's elbow and munched
placidly.
Landlord Files, who was bringing ham and eggs to a commercial drummer,
was amazed by this familiarity and stopped and showed that amazement. He
was more astonished by what he overheard. Mr. Orne was saying, “As your
manager, Britt--”
Mr. Britt scowled at Mr. Files, and the latter slap-slupped on his
slippered way; it was certainly news that Britt had taken on a manager.
Such a personage must be permitted to be familiar. When Mr. Files looked
again, Mr. Orne was eating a second doughnut. He was laying down the law
to a nodding and assenting Mr. Britt on some point, and then he took a
third doughnut and rose to his feet.
“I'll be back to-night, with full details and further instructions to
you, Britt,” declared Mr. Orne, who was known in the county political
circles as “Sniffer” Orne. He combined politics with nursery-stock
canvassing and had a way of his own in getting under the skins of men
when he went in search of information. “If I ain't back to-night I'll
report to-morrow. I may have to take a run over into Norway, Vienna, and
Peru to make sure of how things stand generally.”
He trudged out, stooping forward and waddling with the gait of a parrot
ambling along on a pole; his projecting coat tail and his thin beak
gave him a sort of avian look. The commercial drummer, overhearing his
projected itinerary, glanced out of the window as if he expected to
see Mr. Orne spread wings and fly. But Mr. Orne tucked himself into a
high-backed sleigh and went jangling off along Egypt's single street.
The stranger, inquiring of Mr. Files, learned that Mr. Orne was not as
much of a globe-trotter as he sounded.
“It's only the way the Old Sirs named the towns in the ranges about here
when the land was took up. In this range we have Egypt and them other
towns you heard him speak of. In the next range below are Jerusalem and
Damascus and Levant and Purgatory Mills. If them unorganized townships
to the north of us are ever took up and made towns of, it would be just
like some whifflehead to name 'em Heaven, Hell, Hooray, and Hackmetack.
But the name of Egypt fits this town all right,” stated Mr. Files,
disconsolately, and in his perturbation raising his voice.
“Files, don't run down your home town,” rasped Mr. Britt.
“What has been run down as far's it can be run can't be run no farther,”
said the landlord. “And I 'ain't said why the name Egypt fits the town,
for that matter.” Britt's ugly stare was taking the spirit out of the
landlord's rebelliousness.
“Suppose you do say!” counseled Mr. Britt, menace in his tones. “I've
got a new and special reason, right now, why I demand that every citizen
must uphold the good name of our town--especially a citizen in your
position, first to meet all arriving strangers. Why does the name fit
this town?” He banged the handle of his knife on the table.
Mr. Britt had reason for the heat which he was displaying and which
caused the stranger to open his eyes more widely. Mr. Britt was fully
aware that men called him “Phay-ray-oh” and that his statue in the
cemetery was called “The Sphinx.” He knew that since the town had
gone on the down grade through debt and the decay of industries the
inhabitants had begun to call themselves “The Children of Israel,”
and to say they were trying to make bricks without straw. In fact, an
itinerant evangelist who called himself “The Light of the World” had
come to town and was trying to exhort the inhabitants into rebellion
against conditions, and in his crack-brained hysteria was having some
success in exciting “The Children” to protest against the domination by
Tasper Britt.
Mr. Files was not as handy with his tongue as he was with the mallet
with which he pounded steak. He struggled with an inept reply about
an old town having a dignified old name. He stuttered and stopped when
Britt came and stood in front of him, chewing savagely on a toothpick.
“Files, I wasn't intending to make a formal announcement till my
political manager, Ossian Orne, gets back with reports from the field.
Not but what I expect that when it is known that I'm willing to accept
political honor it will be given to me. But when I sit in the next
legislature of this state as Representative Britt of Egypt, I propose to
represent a town that ain't slurred at home or abroad. Hereafter, mind
your tongue and advise others to do the same.”
He stamped out. Landlord Files was left standing with an open mouth from
which no speech issued.
“Emperor, or only a plain king?” inquired the bagman.
“You being a stranger, I can let out some of my feelings,” returned Mr.
Files. “Emperor, you say? He might just as well try to be one as to run
for the legislature.”
The drummer showed interest.
“That's what getting to be a widderer can do to some men,” confided the
landlord. He placed a smutty hand on the table and leaned down. “That
legislature thing ain't the half of it, mister! He hasn't blacked his
whiskers and bought that false mane simply so as to get into politics.
He's trying to court the prettiest girl in this town.”
“Aha!” said the drummer. “The old story! Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, is
doing the job over again with the local Mark Antony!”
“Mebbe,” admitted Mr. Files, his fishy gaze revealing that he had no
personal knowledge of the parties mentioned. “It's the old story, all
right. Widdereritis, and a bad run of it.”
The bagman had a scarfpin in the shape of a horse shoe. His comment was
in line with his taste in adornment. “Files, old scout, if a colt is put
to harness so early that he can't get his natural fling in the fields,
he'll have it at the other end of his life, when he's let run to
pasture, spavin or no spavin. Why don't Egypt hold off and let Uncle
What's-his-name enjoy his new hair and hopes?”
“He has known how to collect in the money that's due him,” stated
Mr. Files, “compound interest and all! He was only getting back his
investments. But he has never put out any of the kind of capital that
earns liking or respect or love. He has woke up to what he has been
missing. He's trying to collect what he has never invested. And he can't
do it, mister! No, sir, he can't!”
The drummer was a young man. He asked a natural question. “Isn't the
girl willing to be an old man's darling?”
“You might go over to Britt's bank and ask her,” suggested Mr. Files,
crisply. “She's bookkeeper there. But you'd better not let that young
fellow that's cashier overhear you.”
“So that's it? Say, events in Egypt in the near future may make some of
the mummies here sit up and take notice!”
“Shouldn't wonder a mite,” agreed Mr. Files, beginning to gather up the
dishes.