DEADWOOD GAMELY TALKS BUSINESS
Deadwood Gamely was the village sport and enjoyed a certain prestige
because his father was a lawyer. He was also somewhat of an object of
awe because he went to Baxter City every day, and worked in the bank
there.
His ramshackle Ford roadster was considered an evidence of the terribly
reckless extravagance of his habits, but it was really nothing more than
a sort of pocketbook, since all his money went into it, and a very
shabby one at that. He had a cheap wit and swaggeringly condescending
air which he practiced on the simple inhabitants of Everdoze, and in his
banter he was not always kind. Yet notwithstanding that he was tawdry
both in dress and speech the villagers did not venture much into the
conversational arena with him because they knew that they were not his
equals in banter and retort.
“Hello, little orphan Annie,” he said. “Bungel was telling me the wagon
is coming for you pretty soon. Over the hill to the poorhouse. Ever hear
that song? What’s that you’ve got there, a soldier? Watcher doing with
him? Lucky kid, _I’d_ like to be a soldier.”
“What were you, a slacker?” Pee-wee shouted.
This was not the kind of retort that Deadwood Gamely was accustomed to
hearing and he gave a quick look at the small stranger in khaki who sat
behind the counter like a judge on the bench staring straight at him.
“Don’t get him riled,” Pepsy whispered. “He likes to get me riled so’s
just to make me feel silly; it’s—it’s Deadwood Gamely. He’s always
togged out swell like that,” she added fearfully.
“The only thing that’s swell about him is his head,” said Pee-wee in his
loudest voice. “Don’t you be scared of him, I’m here.”
“What’s that?” said the young man in a tone intended to be darkly
menacing.
“You’d better put your hat on the top of your head or it’ll blow off,”
said Pee-wee. “I said that I’m here. Let’s hear you deny it. If I was a
crow I might be afraid of you.”
Slightly taken aback by his ready retorts, the young man could only say,
“If you were a crow, hey?” He stepped a little closer to the counter but
the ominous advance did not alarm Pee-wee in the least. He sat behind
his card-strewn counter holding the stencil brush like a sort of weapon
ready to besmear that face of sneering assurance if its owner ventured
too near.
“So I’m a scarecrow, eh?” Mr. Gamely said with a side glance at Pepsy.
He was not going to have her witness his discomfiture at the hands of
this glib little stranger. Moreover, a slur at his personal splendor was
a very grave matter and not to be overlooked.
“I don’t like fresh kids,” said Mr. Deadwood Gamely, advancing with an
air of veiled menace. “Sometimes they get so fresh they have to be
salted a little. Don’t you think you’d better take that back?”
Pepsy waited, fearful, breathless.
“Sure I will,” said Pee-wee; “the next scarecrow I meet I’ll apologize
to him.”
Deadwood Gamely paused. His usual procedure in an affair of this kind
would have been to advance quickly, ruffle his victim’s hair in a
goading kind of swaggerish good humor and send him sprawling. He would
not really have hurt a youngster like Pee-wee but he would have made him
look and feel ridiculous.
But a glance at Pee-wee’s gummy stencil brush reminded Mr. Gamely that
discretion was the better part of valor. A dexterous dab or two of that
would have put an end to all his glory. Pee-wee left no doubt about
this.
“This summer-house is on private land,” he said, “and I’m the boss of
it. If you try to get fresh with me I’ll paint you blacker—blacker than
a—than a tomato could—I will. You come ten steps nearer, I _dare_ you
to.”
Gamely paused irresolute, at which Pepsy, under protection of her
partner’s terrible threat, set up a provoking laugh. Wiggle, appearing
to sense the situation, began to bark uproariously. There was nothing
for the baffled village sport to do but retreat as gracefully as he
could.
“Can’t you take a joke?” he said weakly. “Do you think I’d hurt you?”
“I _know_ you wouldn’t,” said Pee-wee; “you wouldn’t get the chance. You
think you’re smart, don’t you, talking about the wagon coming to get her
and getting her all scared.”
[Illustration: MR. GAMELY DECIDES TO KEEP AWAY FROM PEE-WEE’S BRUSH.]
Deadwood Gamely broke into a very excessive but false laugh. “No harm
intended,” he said, vaulting on to the fence and sitting discreetly at
that distance. “What’s all this going on here? Going to have a circus or
play store or something?”
Pee-wee was always magnanimous in victory. Abiding enmity was a thing he
knew not. So now he laid down his stencil brush (within easy reach) and
said, “We’re going to start a refreshment shack and sell fruit and
lemonade and waffles and things and maybe auto accessories and
souvenirs.”
Pepsy seemed a bit uncomfortable as Pee-wee said this, perhaps just a
trifle ashamed. She was afraid that this clever, sophisticated young
fellow would ridicule their enterprise, as indeed there was good reason
to do. Yet she felt ashamed, too, of her momentary faithlessness to
Pee-wee.
“Maybe some people will pass here when they have the carnival at
Berryville,” she said, half apologetically.
To her surprise Deadwood Gamely, instead of emitting an uproarious,
mocking laugh, appeared to be thinking.
“Bully for you,” he finally said, looking all about as if to size up the
surroundings. “Right on the job, hey? I’d like to buy some stock in that
enterprise. Whose idea is it? Yours, kiddo?”
“We’re going to make money enough to buy three tents for the scout troop
I belong to,” Pee-wee said.
“Visiting here, hey?”
“I live in Bridgeboro, New Jersey; I’m here for the summer.”
Deadwood Gamely sat on the fence still looking about him and whistling.
Then, instead of bursting forth in derisive merriment as Pepsy dreaded
he would do, he made an astonishing remark.
“I tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “You kids take care of the place and
furnish the fruit and stuff and I’ll put up the coin for all the stuff
you have to buy—chewing gum, and accessories, and souvenirs and junk
that has to be got in the city, and we’ll share even. I’ll put up the
capital and be a silent partner. How does that strike you? You two will
be the active partners. We’ll make the thing go big. I mean what I say.”
“What’s a silent partner?” Pee-wee demanded.
“Oh, that’s just the fellow that puts up the money and keeps in the
background sort of, and nobody knows he’s interested.”
“I’d rather be a noisy partner,” Pee-wee said. “I wouldn’t be silent for
anybody, I wouldn’t.” Deadwood Gamely paused a moment, smiling. “No, but
you could keep a secret, couldn’t you?” he asked.