I DID not bother with any of the victualing houses in that low-down
locality. I led the Sortwell boys uptown and ushered them into a very
fancy restaurant. I could see that their opinion of my greatness was
growing all of the time. I could not induce them to touch the bill of
fare or even look at it. They gaped in such a frightened way when I
mentioned fancy dishes, that I helped to set them at ease by ordering
steak and potatoes. They ate to the last scrap, cleaning their plates
with morsels of bread, even as grateful pups lick their platters. They
confessed that they had not dared to go into an eating-house, and I
remembered that first day when I had roamed the streets of the city.
I wanted to ask questions about Levant, but I delayed. Dave Sortwell,
the older, opened up the subject, but he did not do it very gracefully.
“I reckon they can’t slur the Sidneys after this, like they have always
done past back,” he said. “Here you are, something big down here in the
city--and your uncle Deck is first selectman of Levant.”
So my uncle had achieved his political ambition! When I heard that news
I had inside me a feeling of apprehension which I could scarcely account
for.
“Elected last week at the March town-meeting,” affirmed Ardon, the
brother. “We younger fellows that have come of voting age went for
him--most all of us, because he say’s he is going to turn politics in
our town upside down and dance a jig on the bottom of ’em.”
“He was into the tavern the other night, pretty well teaed up,” giggled
Dave, “and he said he was going to gallop Judge Kingsley to hell and
stand over him with a red-hot gad while he shoveled brimstone. He has
got it in for the judge--and a good many folks in Levant ain’t sorry.
Judge Kingsley has always gouged folks.”
“Did they put the judge out of the treasurership--did my uncle bring
that about?” Hearing that the feud was on worse than ever made my heart
sick. I had been hoping!
“O Lord, no! I guess the judge is forever fixed in that job. Folks can’t
seem to think of anybody else as treasurer. He’s a financier,” said
Dave, reverently. “He knows all about handling money. Folks trust to him
for that.”
“But you say my uncle--”
“Your uncle is doing most of the saying. Folks stand round and listen.
I don’t know what he is trying to do to the judge. Nobody seems to know.
Guess he can’t do much of anything except talk. You know, yourself,
Ross, how he keeps sparked up most of the time. Maybe he don’t know just
what he says, himself.”
I began to skirt the edges of conditions in Levant, asking questions
about this one and that, showing as much indifference as I could. But
the Sortwell boys showed even more indifference about their home
town. It was all too familiar to them. They were displaying increasing
interest in me, and were emboldened to ask questions, now that their
early awe was wearing off.
I found out--and I was rather surprised--that the folks in Levant had
not heard a word about me since I left the town. I had rather expected
that Dodovah Vose would drop some hint as to what had become of me--and
yet, on reflection, I could see that prudence required him to keep
still. He had helped a prisoner to escape, and could not well let
anybody suspect that he knew the whereabouts of that prisoner.
“I’ll tell you, boys,” I said, when they had flanked me with questions
from every approach and had finally and fairly pounced on me to find out
what I was doing for a living and how I was so important, “I am hitched
up with big business interests who don’t allow their men to talk.
I’d tell you if I could tell anybody. It isn’t one special kind of
business--it’s all kinds--a sort of a syndicate--a combination. You
understand!”
They hastened to say that they did--and I was glad of that because I
didn’t understand, myself.
“But you’ll let us say that you’re in this big business, won’t you? When
we get back home we want to tell all of ’em that they’d better not
slur you any more.”
“I suppose the backbiters have been busy, eh?”
“Oh, not much nowadays except somebody remarks once in a while that
you had to skip the town. You know how such things pop up in talk. Your
uncle being prominent nowadays, you get mentioned once in a while. But
Dodovah Vose has always stood up for you!”
“And a lot of folks didn’t believe what that detective said. He wasn’t a
real detective, anyway. He was only a deputy sheriff from Pownal,” added
Ardon, and the next minute I felt like hugging the boy. “I was always
ashamed of how us fellows put you in bad, Ross, and so I owned up when
Celene Kingsley asked me--”
I couldn’t help it! I came right up in my chair. “Celene Kingsley asked
you?”
He misunderstood my heat.
“Don’t be mad, Ross! I stood up for you, I say! I was sorry for what I
did. I was ashamed.”
“But you said Celene Kingsley asked you something!”
“Well, I can’t remember whether she came right to me and asked me or
whether it just happened that the thing came up somewhere or--”
“But you would surely remember if _she_ came to you!” I could not
conceive of Celene coming to anybody without it marking a mile-stone in
life.
However, the Sortwell boy had plainly decided to be non-committal until
he had a better line on my feelings in the affair.
“I don’t want you to be mad because I talked it over, Ross. I stood up
for you!”
“But did she come _asking?_”
“We-e-ll, I guess she must have asked--or--or something! Anyway, it came
up in talk--somehow--”
Confound his haziness!
“And of course I stood up for you. It was only right! I told her how
you tried to bust up the Skokums! I said you threatened to bat out the
brains of the whole of us if we didn’t stop cutting-up. I told her that
they hadn’t ought to have arrested you that night, for you was trying to
stop us from raiding her father’s house to grab that detective. You said
something about a home being a castle--or--or something. Anyway, Ross,
I did the best I knew how--I ain’t so much good in talk as you are.
Honestly, I did the best I could to put you straight when she asked.
Yes, I reckon she did ask.”
I was looking at him with such rapturous expression that his face
cleared of uncertainty regarding my feelings.
“Sure, she must have asked, for I wouldn’t go to blart-ing that around,
making the rest of us out as pirates, unless she had pinned me down. I
reckon she did just that! Pinned me down. But I was glad to help you out
that much!”
It came to me with a rush of sentiment that all I had done that day for
the Sortwell boys had been fully paid for long in advance, and I was
sorry because a whole lot of my actions had really been dictated by my
selfishness and my desire to show off.