THE MAN WHO WAS SORRY
It was a heavy dawn, next day; a thaw had set in and a drizzle of rain
softened the snow; gray clouds trailed their draperies across the top of
Burkett Hill.
Landlord Files had trouble in getting his kitchen fire started--in the
sluggish air the draught was bad. Mr. Files's spirits were as heavy as
the air. He knew it was up to him to be the first man in Egypt to come
in contact with Tasper Britt that morning.
Stage-driver Jones had an early breakfast, for he had to be off with the
mail. Mr. Jones had been up late, for him, and he was grouchy. In the
matter of the warfare on Pharaoh his mood seemed to be less assertive
than it had been the night before. Mr. Files detected that much after
some conversation while the breakfast was served.
“All you have to do is 'gid-dap' and get away,” said Files, sourly. “I
have to stay here on my job and be the first to meet him and get the
brunt of the whole thing. And I condoned, as you might say, and as he'll
probably feel. I let my porch be used for meeting and mobbing, as you
might say. And he ketched me grinning over his shoulder when I read
them heading words after that old lunkhead of a Prophet passed him the
paper.”
“Shut up!” remarked Driver Jones, stabbing a potato.
“I owe him money--and I let my porch be used--”
“Figure out the wear and tear on the planks and pass me the bill. Now
shut up and don't spoil my vittles any morn'n you have done in the way
of cooking 'em.”
Mr. Files, left alone to meet Britt, resolved to hand that tyrant a
partial sop by having breakfast on the table the moment the regular
boarder unfolded his napkin; food might stop Britt's mouth to some
extent, the landlord reflected.
Result of this precautionary courtesy! The breakfast was a mess when
Britt arrived, a half hour late. Mr. Files had depended on his boarder's
invariable punctuality and had been obliged to keep “hotting up” the
food, watching the clock with increasing despair.
Britt smiled on the landlord when they faced each other in the dining
room. The smile made the landlord shiver. He was dreading the explosion.
He set on the viands as timidly as a child holding out peanuts to
an elephant. Mr. Britt beamed blandly and spoke of the change in the
weather and said he was hoping that “Old Reliable Ike wouldn't be
bothered too much by the soft footing on his way to Levant.”
Mr. Files gasped when he heard this consideration expressed for the
ringleader of the evening's demonstration. He recovered sufficiently to
start in on an explanation of the condition of the food.
“It's all right, Files! It's my fault. I overslept.”
Britt ate for a few minutes; then he suspended operations and looked
Files hard in the face; that face, as to mouth, was as widely open as
the countenance of the office alligator. “I did a whole lot of thinking
last night, Files. I'm telling you first, like I propose to tell others
in Egypt as I come in contact with 'em during the day--it has been my
fault--how things have happened! The night brings counsel! Yes, sir, it
surely does.” He went on eating.
“Mr. Britt, I was afraid--”
Pharaoh waved his knife expostulatingly. “I know it, Files! Your face
told me the whole story when I stepped in here. But I'm a changed man.
I know when I'm down. However, it's my own fault, I repeat. I stubbed my
toe over the trigs I had set in the way of my own operations. I deserve
what I'm getting--and the lesson will make me a different man from now
on.”
Mr. Files staggered out into the kitchen in order to be alone with his
thoughts.
Britt spent a longer time than usual in the tavern office after
breakfast; he smoked two cigars, himself, and gave a cigar to each of
the early citizens who dropped in through the front way after they had
received certain information from Files, who excitedly had beckoned
them to come to him at the ell door. Mr. Britt frankly exposed his new
sentiments about living and doing. When he put on his overcoat and went
forth, Prophet Elias popped out of the door of Usial's cot like the
little gowned figure of a toy barometer. Britt waved his hand in
cheerful greeting. “Prophet Elias, hand me that text about the way of
the transgressor being a hard one to travel, and I'll take it in a meek
and lowly spirit and be much obliged.” There was no sarcasm in Britt's
tone; on the contrary, his manner agreed with his profession regarding
meekness. The Prophet swapped stares with Files, who stood in the tavern
door; that Elias was greatly impressed was evident, because he withheld
speech.
That situation had enough drawing power to bring the brother to the
cottage door; he appeared, his spider in his hand.
“Good morning, Usial,” called Tasper. “I own up that you're a convincing
writer. According to your request, you see I'm giving you your right
name. The voters are giving you honors. Who knows what another issue of
_The Hornet_ may get for you?” Britt's tone was one of bluff sincerity.
Egypt's Pharaoh did not seem to be a bit put out because no one replied
to him in this astonishing levee. He descended from the porch and
strolled off toward Britt Block, puffing his cigar.
He found the cashier alone in the bank. Vaniman hastened to put in the
first word. “President Britt, I'm ready to wind up my affairs, and I
hope you see the wisdom in holding our talk strictly to the business in
hand.”
The president walked in past the grille and sat down at the table; by
the mere look he gave the young man Britt succeeded in climaxing the
succession of the morning's surprises; Vaniman had more reason than the
others to be amazed.
“Frank, I'm sorry!” There was wistful fervor in the declaration; for the
first time in their association the president had called the cashier by
his Christian name.
Vaniman had risen from his stool; he sat down again and goggled at
Britt.
“If the two of us begin to apologize, we'll get all snarled up,” went on
the president. “Real men can get down to cases in a better way. I did a
lot of thinking last night; probably you did, too. The hell fire I went
through yesterday would upset any man. To-day I'm scorched and sensible.
I went after something I couldn't get. Just now I don't ask you to stay
here permanently. You can stay right along if you want to, I'll say that
here and now! But if you're bound to go--later--go when you can leave on
the square, after you have broken another man into the job, if you feel
you don't want it. I'll send you away then with my best wishes and a
clean bill! Please don't make me crawl any more'n I'm doing!”
It was an appeal to Youth's hale generosity--and generosity dominated
all the other qualities in Vaniman's nature. “I'll stay, Mr. Britt,” he
blurted. “After what you have said I can't help staying.”
The banker rose and stretched out his hand. “Men can put more into a
grip of the fist than women can into an afternoon of gabble, Frank.”
After the vigorous clasp of palm in palm, Britt had something more to
say. “Vona was terribly stirred up last night, and nobody can blame her.
She served notice on me that she was done in the bank. But she needs
the money and you and I need her help. Go up and ask her to walk back in
here as if nothing had happened. And tell her that what I said about the
raise in her pay holds good.”
“I think you ought to go and tell her, Mr. Britt,” Vaniman demurred.
“And my standing with Mr. and Mrs. Harnden--”
“I guess your standing will be better from now on,” Britt broke in,
twisting his face into a wry smile. “I left Harnden with a hot ear on
him last night! Furthermore, you'll have to ask her. She declared that
if her father or mother or I tried to change her mind about coming back
here we'd be wasting breath. Go on! I'll tend bank.”
When Frank returned with Vona a half hour later the president beamed on
them through the wicket. He immediately left the bank office, giving the
bookkeeper a paternal pat on the shoulder as he passed her, calling her
a good girl. And then the business of the Egypt Trust Company settled
back into its usual routine.
During the day customers came to the wicket with notes sanctioned by the
president's O. K. and his sprawling initials; Mr. Britt did not trouble
himself by consulting the directors in regard to ordinary loans. He was
well settled in his autocracy by virtue of the voting proxies which he
handled for stockholders, although he had only a modest amount of his
own money invested in the stock of the bank. Mr. Britt could use his own
money to better advantage. He was permitted to make a one-man bank
of the Trust Company because nobody in Egypt ventured to dispute his
sapience as a financier.
The customers who came that day were plainly having a hard time of it
in controlling their desire to share some of their emotions with
the cashier. But Vaniman's stolid countenance did not encourage any
confidences.
Some of the repression he exercised in the case of customers extended
to his communion with Vona during the slack times of the business day.
There seemed to be a tacit agreement between them to keep off the topic
of what had happened the night before. Words could not have added to
their understanding of their mutual feelings. That understanding had
established for them the policy of waiting. Though Frank said but little
to the girl about his talk with the president, he imagined he could feel
the tingle of Britt's handclasp as he remembered the look on Britt's
face, and he pitied the old man. To go on, seizing every opportunity to
make love, would seem like “rubbing it in,” Frank told himself. He
also said something of the sort to Vona, and she agreed with an amiable
smile.
And the two of them agreed on one thing, more especially: Tasper Britt
must have had a strange housecleaning of the heart during that vigil in
his home on the hill.
Among other convincing evidences of Britt's transformation was his
treatment of Prophet Elias at the end of that day.
The Prophet did not deliver his usual matutinal taunts in front of
Britt Block. But when he came back from the field in the afternoon, he
returned from conferences with Egyptian skeptics who had not seen Tasper
Britt in his new form, and therefore, perhaps, their assertions had
caused Elias to doubt the evidences of his own senses. At any rate, the
Prophet resolved to put the reform of Pharaoh to the test of texts, and
he raised his voice and declaimed.
Britt came to the front door and mildly entreated the Prophet to walk
in. “I'll be glad to listen to you. Isn't it a good idea to tell me, man
to man, in my office what's wrong with me, instead of standing out there
in the snow, telling the neighborhood?”
The Prophet went in, having first slapped his hand on his breast, urging
action, “'Go in, speak unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that he let the
children of Israel go out of his hand.'”
He trudged forth, after a time, and walked along slowly toward Usial's
house, clawing his hand above his ear with the air of a man trying to
solve a perplexing puzzle.