Foster run a shebang that was labeled "The Palace Billiard, Pool and
Sipio Parlors. Cigars and Tobacco. Tonics, all Flavors. Ice Cream in
Season." The "Palace" part was some exaggeration and so was the
"Parlors," but the place was the favorite hang-out of all the loafers
and young sports in town and the church folks was tumble down on it,
callin’ it a "gilded hell" and such pious profanity. The gilt had wore
off years afore and if the hot place ain’t more interestin’ than that
billiard saloon it must be dull for some of the permanent boarders.
We found Philander asleep back of the soft drink counter and young
Erastus Taylor—"Ratty," everybody called him—practicin’ pin pool, as
usual, at one of the tables. "Ratty" was Ebenezer Taylor’s only son and
the combination trial and idol of the old man’s soul. Ebenezer thought
most as much of him as he did of his money, and when you’ve said that
you couldn’t make it any stronger. He’d done a heap to make a man of
"Rat"—his idea of a man—even separatin’ from enough cash to send him to
a business college up to Middleboro; but all the boy got from that
college was a thunder and lightnin’ taste in clothes and a post-graduate
course in pool playin’. Pool playin’ was the only thing he cared about
and he could spot any one of the Ostable sharps four balls and beat ’em
hands down. He’d sampled two or three jobs up to Boston, but they always
undermined his health and he drifted back home to live on dad and look
for another "openin’." I cal’late the pair lived a cat and dog life, for
Ratty always wanted money to spend and Ebenezer wanted it to keep. The
old man was the wust down on the billiard room of anybody and his son
put in most of his time there.
Me and Jim Henry woke up Philander and told him we wanted to talk with
him private. He said go ahead and talk; there wa’n’t anybody to hear but
Ratty, and Rat was just like one of the family. So, as we couldn’t do it
any different, we went ahead. Jacobs explained that we felt that maybe
we might some time or other need a little extry room for our business
and, bein’ as he—Philander—was handy by and we was always prejudiced in
favor of a neighbor and so on, perhaps he’d consider sellin’ us his
buildin’ and lot. Course it didn’t make so much difference to him; he
could easy move his "Parlors" somewheres else—and similar sweet ile.
Philander listened till Jim Henry had poured on the last soothin’ drop,
and then he laughed.
"Um ... ya-as," he says. "I could move a heap, _I_ could! I’m so durned
popular amongst the good landholders in this town that any one of ’em
would turn their best settin’-rooms over to me the minute I mentioned
it. Yes, indeed! Just where ’bouts would I move?—if ’tain’t too much to
ask."
Well, that was some of a sticker, ’cause _I_ couldn’t think of anybody
that would have that billiard room within a thousand fathoms of their
premises, if they could help it. But Jim Henry he pretended not to be
shook up a cent’s wuth. That was easy; ’twas just a matter of
Philander’s pickin’ out the right place, that was all there was to it.
Philander heard him through and then he laughed again.
"You’re wastin’ good business breath," he says. "I wouldn’t sell if I
could, unless I had a fust-class place to move into, and there ain’t no
such place on the main road and you know it. I’m doin’ trade enough to
keep me alive and I’m satisfied, though I can’t lay up a cent. But, so
fur as movin’ out is concerned, I expect to do that on the fust of next
November. I’ll be fired out, I judge, and prob’ly’ll have to leave town.
Hey, Rat?"
Ratty Taylor, who’d been listenin’, twisted his mouth and grunted.
"Yes," he says, "I guess that’s right, worse luck!"
"You bet it’s right!" says Philander. "As I said, Mr. Jacobs, if I could
sell out to you and Cap’n Zeb I wouldn’t, without a good handy place to
move into. And I can’t sell any way. There’s a thousand dollar mortgage
on this shop and lot; it’s due June fust; and, unless I pay it off—which
I can’t, havin’ not more’n five hundred to my name—the mortgage’ll be
foreclosed and out I go."
This was news all right. Then me and Jim Henry asked the same question,
both speakin’ together.
"Who owns the mortgage?" we asked.
Foster looked at Ratty and grinned. Rat grinned back, sort of sickly.
"Shall I tell ’em?" says Philander.
"I don’t care," says Ratty. "Tell ’em, if you want to."
"Well," says Foster, "old Ebenezer Taylor, Ratty’s dad, owns it, drat
him! and he’s tryin’ to drive me out of town ’count of Rat’s spendin’ so
much time in here. Ratty’s a fine feller, but his pa’s the meanest old
skinflint that ever drawed the breath of life. Not meanin’ no
reflections on your family, Rat—but ain’t it so?"
"_I_ shan’t contradict you, Phi," says Ratty.
Jacobs and I looked at each other. Then I got up from my chair.
"Jim Henry," says I, "I don’t see as we’ve got much to gain by stayin’
here. Let’s go home."
We went back to the store, neither of us speakin’, but both thinkin’
hard. It was all off now, of course. If old Taylor owned that mortgage,
he’d foreclose on the nail, if only to get rid of his son’s loafin’
place. And he wouldn’t sell to us—hatin’ us as he did—unless we covered
the place with cash an inch deep. No, buyin’ the "Palace" was a dead
proposition. And there wa’n’t another available buildin’ or lot big
enough for us to move to within a mile of Ostable Center.
"Humph!" says I, some sarcastic. "It looks to me—speakin’ as a man in
the crosstrees—as if that wonderful business brain of yours had sprung a
leak somewheres, Jim. Better get your pumps to workin’, hadn’t you?"
He snorted. "I’d rather have a leaky head than a solid wood one like
some I know," he says. "Quiet your Jezebellerin’ and let me think....
There’s one thing we might do, of course: We might advance the other
five hundred to Foster, let him pay off his mortagage, and then—"
"And then trust to luck to get the money back," I put in. "There’s more
charity than profit in that, if you ask me. Once that mortgage is paid,
you couldn’t get Philander out of that buildin’ with a derrick. He don’t
want to go."
"But we might make some sort of a deal to pay him a hundred dollars or
so to boot and then—"
"And then you’d have another hundred to collect, that’s all. I wouldn’t
trust that billiard and sipio man as fur as old Ebenezer could see
through his nigh-to specs. No sir-ee! Nothin’ doin’, as the boys say."
Next forenoon I met old Ebenezer Taylor on the sidewalk in front of the
Methodist meetin’-house and, when he saw me, he stopped and commenced
chucklin’ and gigglin’ as if he was wound up.
"He, he, he!" says he. "He, he! I hear you and that partner of yours,
Zebulon, want to buy my property next door to you. Well, I’ll sell it to
you—at a price. He, he, he! at a price."
[Illustration: _'Well, I’ll sell it to you—at a price.’_]
"So your hopeful and promisin’ son’s been tellin’ tales, has he?" says
I. "I wa’n’t aware that it was your property—yet."
He stopped gigglin’ and glared at me, sour and bitter as a green
crab-apple.
"It’s goin’ to be," he says. "Don’t you forget that, it’s goin’ to be.
And if you want it, you’ll pay my price. You owe me for them clothes you
ruined, Zeb Snow—for them and for other things. And I cal’late I’ve got
you fellers about where I want you."
"Oh, I don’t know," says I. "You may be glad enough to sell to us later
on. What good is an empty buildin’ on your hands? Unless of course you
intend rentin’ it for another billiard saloon."
That made him so mad he fairly gurgled.
"There’ll be no billiard saloon in this town," he declared. "No more
gilded ha’nts of sin, temptin’ young men whose parents have spent good
money on their education. No, you bet there won’t! And that buildin’ may
not be empty, nuther. I know somethin’. He, he, he!"
"Sho!" says I. "Do you? I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Ebenezer."
I left him tryin’ to think of a fittin’ answer, and walked on to the
store. Mary called to me from behind the letter-boxes.
"Mr. Jacobs is in the back room," she says, "and he wants to see you
right away. Erastus Taylor is with him."
"’Rastus Taylor?" I sung out. "Ratty? What in the world—?"
I hurried into the back room. Sure enough, there was Jim Henry and Ratty
caged behind a pile of boxes and barrels.
"Ah, Skipper!" says Jacobs; "is that you? I was hopin’ you’d come. Young
Taylor here has been suggestin’ an idea that looks good to me. Tell the
Cap’n what you’ve been tellin’ me, Ratty."
Rat twisted uneasy on the box where he was settin’ and give me a side
look out of his little eyes. I never saw him look more like his
nickname.
"Well, Cap’n Zeb," he says, "it’s like this: I’ve been thinkin’ and I
believe I’ve thought of a way so you and Mr. Jacobs can get Philander’s
lot and buildin’."
"You have, hey?" says I. "That’s interestin’, if true. What’s the way?"
"Why," says he, twistin’ some more, "that mortgage is due on the first
of June. If it ain’t paid, Philander’ll be foreclosed and he’ll move out
of town. It’s only a thousand dollars and Phi’s got half of it. If
somebody—you and Mr. Jacobs, say—was to lend him t’other half, why then
he could pay it off and—and—"
"And stay where he is," I finished disgusted. "That would be real lovely
for Philander, but I don’t see where we come in. This ain’t a billiard
and loan society Mr. Jacobs and I are runnin’, thankin’ you and Foster
for the suggestion."
"Wait a minute, Skipper," says Jim Henry. "Your engine is runnin’ wild.
That ain’t Ratty’s scheme at all. Go on, Rat; spring it on him."
"Philander wouldn’t be so set on stayin’ where he is, Cap’n Zeb," says
Rat, quick as a flash, "if he had another place to move into; another
place here on the main road, convenient and handy by. And I think I know
a place that could be got for him."
I didn’t answer for a minute. I was runnin’ over in my mind every
possible place that might be sold or let to Philander Foster for a
"Palace." And to save my life I couldn’t think of one.
"Well," says I, at last, "where is it?"
Ratty leaned forward. "What’s the matter with Aunt Hannah Watson’s
buildin’ up the street?" he says. "She’s been crazy to sell it for a
long spell. And the lower floor would make a pretty fair billiard room,
wouldn’t it?"
I was disgusted. I knew the buildin’ he meant, of course. Jacobs and I
had talked it over that very mornin’ as a possible place to move the
"Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store" to,
but we’d both decided it wa’n’t nigh big enough.
"Humph!" says I, "that scheme’s so brilliant you need smoked glass to
look at it. Do you cal’late as good a church woman as Aunt Hannah Watson
would sell or let her place for a billiard room? She needs the money bad
enough, land knows; but she’s as down on those ha’nts of sin as your dad
is, Rat Taylor. She’d never sell to Phi Foster in this world."
"_She_ mightn’t, I give in," answered Rat. "But her nephew up to Wareham
is a diff’rent breed of cats. And since she moved over there to live
along with him, he’s got the handlin’ of her property. I found that out
to-day. From what I hear of this nephew man he ain’t as particular as
his aunt. And, anyway, ’tain’t necessary for Philander to make the deal.
You and Mr. Jacobs might make it for him."
I thought this over for a minute. I begun to catch the idea that the
young scamp had in his noddle—or I thought I did.
"H’m," I says. "Yes, yes. You mean that if we’d lend Philander enough to
pay the balance of his mortgage on the buildin’ he’s in now and would
fix it so’s Aunt Hannah’d sell us her place, under the notion that _we_
was goin’ to use it—you mean that then, after June fust, Foster’d swap.
He’d move in there and turn over the old ’Palace’ to us."
He and Jim Henry both bobbed their heads emphatic.
"That’s what he means," says Jim.
"That’s the idea exactly, Cap’n," says Rat. "I think Philander might be
willin’ to do that."
"Is that so!" says I, sarcastic. "Well, well! I want to know! But, say,
Ratty, ain’t you takin’ an awful lot of trouble on Foster’s account?
You’re turrible unselfish and disinterested all to once; or else there’s
a nigger in the woodpile somewheres. Where do you come in on this?"
He looked pretty average cheap. He fussed and fumed for a minute and
then he blurts out his reason. "Well, I’ll tell you, Cap’n," he says.
"Philander’s about the best friend I’ve got in this bum town and I get
more solid comfort in his saloon than anywheres else. If he’s drove out
of Ostable, I’ll be lonesomer than the grave. I don’t want him to go.
And besides—well, you see, the old man—dad, I mean—has got a notion
about settin’ me up in business here. And I don’t want to be set up—not
in his kind of business. I know the kind of business I want to go into,
and ... but never mind that part," he adds, in a hurry.
I smiled. I remembered what old Ebenezer had said about the "Palace"
buildin’ not bein’ empty on his hands very long and about somethin’ he
knew. It was all plain enough now. He intended openin’ some sort of a
store there with his son as boss. I almost wished he would. ’Twould be
as good as a three-ring circus, that store would, if I knew Ratty. But I
was mad, just the same, and when Jim Henry spoke, I was ready for him.
"Well, Skipper," says Jacobs, "what do you think of the plan?"
"Think it’s a good one, if you’re willin’ to heave morals and common
honesty overboard—otherwise no. To put up a trick like that on an old
widow woman like Aunt Hannah Watson—to land a billiard room on her
property, when she’d rather die than have it there, is too close to
robbin’ the Old Ladies’ Home to suit me. I wouldn’t touch it with a
ten-foot pole. So good day to you, Rat Taylor," says I, and walked out.
But Jim Henry Jacobs didn’t walk out. No, sir! him and that young Taylor
scamp stayed in that back room for another half hour and left it
whisperin’ in each other’s ears and actin’ thicker than thieves. I
wondered what was up, but I was too put-out and mad to ask.
"I’ll look it over right after dinner to-morrer," says Jacobs, as they
shook hands at the front door.
"Sure you will, now?" asks Ratty, anxious. "Don’t put it off, ’cause it
may be too late."
"At one o’clock to-morrer I’ll be there," says Jim Henry, and Rat went
away lookin’ pretty average happy.
Jacobs scarcely spoke to me all the rest of that day nor the next
mornin’. As we got up from the boardin’ house table the follerin’ noon
he says, without lookin’ me in the face, "I ain’t goin’ back to the
store now. I’ve got an errand somewheres else."
"Yes," says I, "I imagined you had. You’re goin’ down to look at that
buildin’ of poor old Aunt Hannah’s. That’s where you’re goin’. Ain’t you
ashamed of yourself, Jim Jacobs?"
"Oh, cut it out!" he snaps, savage. "You make me tired, Skipper. You and
your backwoods scruples give me a pain. I’ve lived where people aren’t
so narrow and bigoted and I don’t consider a billiard room an annex to
the hot place. If, by a business deal, I can get that buildin’ next door
to add to our establishment, I’m goin’ to do it, if I have to use my own
money and not a cent of yours. Yes, I _am_ goin’ to look at that Watson
property. Now, what have you got to say about it?"
"Why, just this," says I; "I cal’late I’ll go with you."
"You will?" he sings out. "_You?_"
"Yes," says I, "me. Not that I feel any different about skinnin’ Aunt
Hannah than I ever did, but because there’s a bare chance that her place
may be big enough for us to move the store and post-office to, after
all. With that idea and no other, I’ll go with you, Jim."
So we went together, though we never spoke more than two words on the
way down. We got the key at the jewelry and hardware shop next door and
went in. The Watson place was an old-fashioned tumble-down buildin’ with
a big open lower floor and two or three rooms overhead. I saw right off
'twouldn’t do for us to move into, but likewise I saw that the lower
floor _might_ do for Foster, though 'twa’n’t as good as where he was, by
consider’ble.
Jim Henry looked the place over.
"No good for us," he snapped.
"None at all," says I.
"Humph!" says he, and we locked up and came down the steps together. As
we did so I noticed someone watchin’ us from acrost the road.
"There’s our friend, Jim Henry," says I. "And, judgin’ by the way he’s
starin’, he’s got on his fur-off glasses and knows who we are."
He looked across. "Old Taylor, by thunder!" says he. "Well, if my deal
goes through we’ll jolt the old tight-wad yet."
"Do you mean you’re goin’ on with that low-down billiard-room game?" I
asked.
"Of course I do," he snapped.
"Then you’ll do it on your own hook. _I_ won’t be part or parcel of it."
"Who asked you to?" he wanted to know. And we didn’t speak again for the
rest of that day. It made me feel bad, because he and I had been mighty
friendly, as well as partners together. The only comfort I got out of it
was that, judgin’ by the way he kept from lookin’ at me or speakin’, he
didn’t feel any too good himself.
But that evenin’ Ratty drifted in and the pair of 'em had another
confab. And next day, after the mail had gone, Jacobs got me alone and
says he:
"Well," he says, "I think I ought to tell you that I’ve written that
nephew in Wareham and made an offer on the Watson property. I did it on
my own responsibility and I’ll pay the freight. But I thought perhaps I
ought to tell you."
"What did you offer?" I asked. He told me.
"I’ll take half," says I, "because I consider it a good investment at
that figger. But only with the agreement that the billiard saloon
sha’n’t go there."
"Then you can keep your money," he says, short. And there was another
long spell of not speakin’ between the two of us.
Mary noticed that there was somethin’ wrong, and it worried her. She
spoke to me about it.
"Cap’n Zeb," she says, "what’s the trouble between you and Mr. Jacobs?
Of course it isn’t my business, and you mustn’t tell me unless you wish
to."
I thought it over. "Well," says I, "I can’t tell you just now, Mary.
It’s a business matter we don’t agree on and it’s kind of private. I’ll
tell you some day, but just now I can’t. It ain’t all my secret, you
see."
"I see," says she. "I shouldn’t have asked. I beg your pardon. I wasn’t
curious, but I do hate to see any trouble between you two. I like you
both."
I nodded. I was feelin’ pretty blue. "Jim’s a mighty good chap at
heart," I says. "I owe him a lot and he’s consider’ble more than just a
partner to me."
"He thinks the world of you, too," says she. "He’s told me so a great
many times. That is why I can’t bear to see you disagree."
I couldn’t bear it none too well, either, but Jim Henry showed no signs
of givin’ in and I wouldn’t. So we moped around, keepin’ out of each
other’s way, and actin’ for all the world like a couple of young-ones in
bad need of a switch.
A couple more days went by afore the answer came from Wareham. When I
saw the envelope on the desk, with the Watson man’s name in the corner,
I knew what it meant and I was on hand when Jim Henry opened it. He was
ugly and scowlin’ when he ripped off the envelope. Then I heard him
swear. I was dyin’ to know what the letter said, but I wouldn’t have
asked him for no money. I walked out to the front of the store. Five
minutes later I felt his hand on my shoulder. He had a curious
expression on his face, sort of a mixture of mad and glad.
"Skipper," he says, "we’re buncoed again. We don’t get the Watson
place."
"Don’t, hey?" says I. "All right, I sha’n’t shed any tears. I wa’n’t
after it, and you know it. But I’m surprised that your offer wa’n’t
accepted. Why wa’n’t it?"
"Because somebody got ahead of me. Here’s the letter. Listen to this:
’Your offer for my aunt’s property in Ostable came a day too late.
Yesterday I gave a year’s option on that property, for five hundred
dollars cash, to—’"
"Land of love!" I interrupted. "Only yesterday! That was close haulin’,
I must say."
"Wait," says he, "you haven’t heard the whole of it. ’A year’s option
... for five hundred dollars cash, to Mr. Taylor of your town.’"
"Taylor!" says I. "_Taylor!_ My soul and body! The old skinflint beat us
again! Well, I swan!"
"Um-hm," says he. "I size it up like this. He saw us come out of there
the other day and guessed that we thought of buyin’ and movin’. So, as
he owed us a grudge, and because the Watson property is, as you said, a
good investment anyhow, he makes his option offer on the jump, and beat
me to it."
I whistled. "I cal’late you’ve hit the nailhead, Jim," says I. "Well, to
be free and frank, I’m glad of it."
"So am I," says he.
_That_ was a staggerer. I whirled round and looked at him.
"You _are_?" I sung out.
"Yes," says he, "I am. Of course I had my heart set on gettin’ that
’Palace’ for an addition that would give more room and extry space to
our place here; and the only way I could see to get it was to take up
with that Rat’s proposition. I haven’t any prejudice against billiards—"
"Neither have I, but—"
"I know. And you’re right. Old lady Watson has, and to run Foster’s
establishment in on her would have been a low-down mean trick. I’ve felt
like a thief, but I was so pig-headed I wouldn’t back down. Now that
I’ve got it where the chicken got his, I’m glad of it, I really am.
Partner, will you forget my meanness and shake hands?"
Would I? I was as tickled as a youngster with a new tin whistle. And so
was he.
"There’s only one thing that keeps me mad," he says, "and that is that
old Ebenezer’s got the laugh on us again. As for more room for the
store—well, we’ll have to think that out."
We thought, but it wa’n’t us that got the answer. 'Twas Mary Blaisdell.
I told her what our fuss had been about, and she agreed that I was right
and that Jim Henry’s sharp business sense had sort of run away with him
for the time bein’.
"But," says she, "we certainly do need more room, both in the mail
department and the store. I’ve had an idea for some time. Let _me_ think
a while."
Next day she told Jacobs and me what her idea was. ’Twas that we should
build an addition on to our own buildin’. Run it two stories high and
right out into the back yard. ’Twas just the thing and the wonder is
that we hadn’t thought of it ourselves.
"She’s a wonder, Jim, ain’t she?" says I, when we was alone together.
"_You_ think so, don’t you, Skipper," says he, smilin’.
I flared up. "Sartin I do," I says. "Don’t you?"
"Indeed I do."
"Then what do you mean?"
"Oh, nothin’, nothin’. Say, have you seen old Taylor lately? I suppose
he’s crowin’ like a Shanghai rooster. I do hate for that old skinflint
to have the joke always on his side."
"I know," says I. "So do I. But some day, if we wait long enough, we may
have a chance to laugh at him. I’ve lived a good many year and I’ve seen
it work that way pretty often. We’ll wait—and when we do laugh, we’ll
laugh hard."
And we didn’t have to wait so turrible long neither. We got a carpenter
in, told him to keep it a secret, but to plan how we could build the
backyard extension. The plannin’ and estimatin’ kept us busy and we
forgot about everything else. Fust along I expected young Taylor would
pester us with more schemes, but he didn’t. He never came nigh us once,
fact is he seemed mighty anxious to keep out of our way, and so long as
he did we didn’t complain. His dad come crowin’ and chucklin’ around a
couple of times and finally Jacobs lost his temper and told him if he
ever showed his face on our premises again he was liable to be put to
the expense of havin’ it repaired by the doctor. Ebenezer vowed
vengeance and law suits, but he went, and after that he sent a boy for
his mail instead of comin’ to fetch it himself.
One forenoon, about eleven o’clock ’twas, I was standin’ on the store
platform, when I heard the Old Harry’s own row in the "Palace Billiard,
Pool and Sipio Parlors." Loud voices, all goin’ at once, and two or
three different assortments of language. Jim Henry heard it, too, and
come out to listen.
"Skipper," he says, sudden; "what day is this?"
"Why, Thursday," says I, "ain’t it? Oh, you mean what day of the month.
Hey? By the everlastin’! I declare if it ain’t the fust of June!"
"The day Foster’s mortgage falls due," he says, excited. "I wonder....
You don’t suppose—"
He didn’t have to suppose, for inside of the next two minutes we both
knew. Three men came bustin’ out of the billiard room door. One was
Philander himself, the other was Ezra Colcord, the lawyer, and the third
was our old shipmate and bosom friend, Ebenezer Taylor. The old man was
fairly frothin’ at the mouth.
"You—you—" he sputtered, "you’ve deceived me. You’ve lied to me. You led
me to think—"
"I don’t see as you’ve got any kick, Mr. Taylor," purrs Philander,
smilin’. "You’ve got your money. What more can you ask?"
"But—but I don’t want the money. I want this property, and I’ll have
it."
"Oh, no, you won’t, Mr. Taylor," says Colcord, the lawyer. "This
property belongs to Foster now. He’s paid your mortgage in full. You
have no rights here whatever and I advise you to go before you are
arrested for trespassin’."
Well, the old man went, but he was still talkin’ and threatenin’ when he
turned the corner. Colcord laughed and shook hands with Philander.
"Don’t mind him, Foster," he says. "He’s sore, that’s all, but he has no
claim whatever. You’ve paid off your mortgage and the property is yours
absolutely. As for the other matter, the papers will be ready for
signature this afternoon. Ha, ha! I imagine they won’t add to our
friend’s joy."
"Cal’late not," says Philander, grinnin’. "This’ll be his day for
surprises, hey?"
They shook hands again and Colcord left. Soon’s he’d gone, Jim Henry
grabbed me by the arm. He didn’t even wait for the lawyer to get out of
sight.
"Come on," he says. "This is too good to be true. We must find out about
this, Skipper."
So over to the "Parlors" we hurried. Philander looked sort of queer when
he saw us comin’, but he didn’t run away. We commenced to ask questions,
both of us together. After we’d asked a dozen or so, he held up his
hand.
"Come inside," he says, "and I’ll tell you about it. The secret’ll be
out in a little while, anyhow, and maybe we do owe you fellers a little
mite of explanation."
We went in, wonderin’. Philander set up the cigars, ten-centers at that,
and then he says: "Yes, I’ve paid off my mortgage and I cal’late you
wonder where the money came from. Five hundred of it I had myself. You
knew that."
"Yes," says Jacobs, and I nodded.
"Um-hm," says he. "Well, I loaned the five hundred to Ratty and he
bought the option on Aunt Hannah’s buildin’ with it."
We fairly jumped off our pins.
"What?" says I.
"_Rat_ bought that option?" gasped Jim Henry. "Nonsense! his dad bought
it."
"No-o," says Philander, solemn, "’twas Rat that bought it at fust. The
whole scheme was his and I give him credit for it. After Mr. Jacobs here
had agreed to look at the Watson place, Ratty got Ed. Holmes to take him
over to Wareham in his auto. There he see this nephew of Aunt Hannah’s,
paid down his five hundred and got the option."
"But that letter I got said—" began Jim Henry, and then he pulled up
short. "No," says he, "it said ’Mr. Taylor’ had secured the option; I
remember now. But, of course, we supposed it was Ebenezer."
"And Ebenezer did have it," I put in. "He told me so himself. I met him
on the road and he—"
"Hold on, Cap’n," cuts in Philander, "no use goin’ through all that.
Ebenezer _has_ got it now. Ratty decoyed his dad down abreast the Watson
place while you and Mr. Jacobs was inside lookin’ it over, and the old
man see you two come out."
"I know he did," says I. "I saw him peekin’ at us from behind a tree."
"Yes," goes on Foster, "he was there. And, naturally, he jedged you was
cal’latin’ to buy that buildin’ and move into it. Fact is, he’d been
intendin’ to buy it himself as an investment, and, now that there was a
chance to spite you fellers hove in for good measure, he was more
anxious to get it than ever. Then Rat broke the news that he had the
option and was willin’ to sell it to the highest bidder. Ha! ha! I guess
there was a lively session, but the upshot of it was that Ebenezer
bought that option off his boy for a thousand dollars. That’s how _he_
got it."
"Well, I’ll be hanged!" says Jim Henry. I was way past sayin’ anything.
"And so," continues Philander, "the five hundred dollars’ profit on the
option and the five hundred dollars I lent Rat to start with made just
the amount needful to pay off my mortgage. And, Squire Colcord and me
paid it off this mornin’. You fellers heard the concludin’ section of
the ceremonies. Ebenezer’s benediction was some spicy, hey!"
"But—but—why, look here, Philander," says I. "I don’t understand this at
all. Five hundred of that thousand was Rat’s. He ain’t no
philanthropist; he wouldn’t _give_ it to you, unless miracles are comin’
into fashion again. What—"
Foster laughed. "There is a little somethin’ underneath," he says. "It’s
been kept pretty close, but the cat’ll be out of the bag afore the day’s
over and, considerin’ how much you two helped without meanin’ to, I’d
just as soon tell you. Ratty told you that his pa was cal’latin’ to set
him up in business, didn’t he? Yes. Well, Rat’s had a notion for a long
spell about the business he meant to get into. There’s a new sign been
ordered for this shebang of mine. Here’s the copy for it."
He reached under the cigar counter and held up a long piece of
pasteboard. ’Twas lettered like this:
PALACE BILLIARD, POOL AND SIPIO PARLORS.
_Philander Foster & Erastus Taylor,_
_Proprietors._
"I cal’late the old man’ll disown his son when he knows it," goes on
Foster, "but Rat had rather run a pool room than be rich, any day in the
week. And say," he adds, "if I was you fellers I’d try to be on hand
when Ebenezer fust sees the new sign. I should think you’d get
consider’ble satisfaction from watchin’ his face. I’m cal’latin’ to,
myself," says Philander Foster.