History often repeats itself where one would least expect it, and the
world-old tide of human nature has a way of finding world-old
channels. Therefore it happened in Banbridge, as in ancient times,
that there was a learned barber, or perhaps, to be more strictly
accurate, a barber who thought that he was learned. He would have
been entirely ready, had his customers coincided with his views, to
have given his striped pole its old signification of the ribbon
bandage which bound the arm of a patient after bleeding, and added
surgery to his hair-cutting and his beard-shaving. John Flynn had the
courage of utter conviction as to his own ability to master all
undertakings at which he chose to tilt. An aspiration once conceived,
he never parted with, but held to it as a part of his life.
Non-realization made not the slightest difference. His sense of time
as a portion of eternity never left him, and therefore his patience
under tardy fulfilment of his desires never faltered. Some ten years
before, he decided that he would at some earlier or later date become
mayor of Banbridge, and his decision was still impregnable. After
every new election of another candidate, he begged his patrons for
their votes another time, and was not in the least disturbed nor
daunted that they had failed in their former promises. Flynn's
good-nature was as unfaltering as his self-esteem, perhaps because of
his self-esteem. He only smiled with fatuous superiority when from
time to time, after the elections, his patrons would chaff him about
his failure to secure the mayoralty. They did so with more effect
since there were always among the horse-players on such occasions a
few who would cast votes for the barber, esteeming it as a choice and
perennial joke, and his reading his name among the unsuccessful
candidates served to foster his delusion and keep Flynn's ambition
alive.
One Sunday, shortly after the Carrolls had moved to Banbridge, John
Flynn was shaving Jacob Rosenstein, who kept the principal dry-goods
store of the village, and a number of men were sitting and lounging
about, waiting their turns. Flynn's shop was on the main street in
the centre of the business district--his shop, or his "Tonsorial
Parlor," as his sign had it. It was quite an ornate establishment.
There was a lace lambrequin in the show-window, a palm in each
corner, between which stood a tank of gold-fish, and below the lace
lambrequin swung a gilt cage containing an incessantly hopping,
though silent, yellow canary.
Flynn was intensely proud and fond of the establishment, and was
insulted if it was alluded to as a barber-shop. He himself never even
thought of it, much less spoke of it, as such. "Well, I must be going
to the 'Parlor,'" he would say when setting out to business. He was
unmarried, and lived in a boarding-house.
As Flynn shaved Rosenstein, who was naturally speechless, his
landlady's husband, Billy Amidon, was talking a good deal. Amidon was
always shaved for nothing, in consideration of the fact that his wife
supported him with board money, and the barber had an undefined
conviction that it was mean to take it back after he had just paid
it. Amidon was a notorious talker, and was called a very "dry sort of
man," which, in the village vernacular, signified that he was
esteemed a wit.
"Well," he said to another man, who was leaning with a relaxation of
all his muscles against the little strip of counter, which contained
a modest assortment of hair-oils and shaving-brushes and soaps which
nobody was ever seen to buy--"well, John has lost ten pounds since
the election, Tappan."
Tappan ran a milk-route between Banbridge and Ardmoor, a little
farming-place six miles out. Tappan was an Ardmoor man. His
milk-wagon stood in front of the "Tonsorial Parlor." He had a drink
of beer at Frank Steinbach's saloon next door, and now was waiting
for his Sunday shave before going home. His milk-peddling was over
for the day. He was a hard-working-man, and had been on the road
since four o'clock. He had a heavy look about his eyes, and he
greeted Amidon's facetiousness with a weary and surly hitch.
"Has he?" he replied, indifferently.
But a very young, very small man, sitting in one of the "Parlor"
arm-chairs, laughed like a child, with intense enjoyment. "Yep," he
said, "I've noticed that. As much as ten pounds has went since
election, sure."
"Shet up," replied Flynn, carefully scraping his patron's face. He
said "Shet up" with an expression of foolish pride. The postmaster of
Banbridge, who was sitting somewhat aloof and held himself with a
constraint of exclusiveness (he was new to his office and had not yet
lost the taste of its dignity), laughed.
"Let me see, how many votes did you have this year, John?" he asked,
condescendingly.
"Five," replied John, with open exultation.
"Now, John, why didn't you get more than that, I'd like to know?"
Flynn laughed knowingly. "Oh," he said, "it's the old story--not
money enough."
"But a lot promised they'd vote for you, didn't they, John?"
persisted the postmaster, Sigsbee Ray, with a wink of humorous
confidence at the others.
"Yep, but damme, who expects anybody to keep an election promise if
he ain't paid for it? I ain't unreasonable. What's elections for? You
wait."
"Haven't you given up yet, John?"
"Well, I guess not. You wait."
"Say, John," interposed Amidon, "how much did you pay them five what
voted for you this year, hey?"
Flynn looked up from Rosenstein's belathered face with a burst of
simple triumph. "I didn't pay any of them a penny," said he. "There
is damn fools everywhere, and you wait," said he, "an' see ef there
ain't more come to light next time. I'll fetch it yet, along of the
fools, an' ef I can raise a leetle money, an' I begin to see my way
clear to that."
"How's that?" John was asked by the small young man.
"I'm layin' low 'bout that," replied John, mysteriously.
"Now, John," said the postmaster, "you wouldn't lay low if there was
a good chance to make some money, and not give us poor devils a
chance?"
The postmaster spoke consciously. He expected what came, the buzz of
remonstrance at his classing himself in his new office with poor
devils.
"You'd better talk about poor devils," growled the milkman, Tappan.
"You'd better talk. Huh! here you be, don't hev to git to work till
eight o'clock, an' quittin' at eight nights, and fifteen hundred a
year. You'd better talk, Mr. Ray. If you was a man gittin' up at
three of a winter's mornin', and settin' out with a milk-route at
four, an' makin' 'bout half a penny a quart, an' cussed at that
'cause it ain't all cream--if you was as dead tired as I be this
minute you might talk."
"Well, I'm willing to allow that I am not as hard pushed as you are,"
said the postmaster, with magnanimous humility.
"You'd better. Poor devils, huh! I guess I know what poor devils be,
and the hell they're in. Bet your life I do. Huh!"
"I'm a poor devil 'nough myself, when it comes to that," said Amidon,
"but I reckon you kin speak for yourself when it comes to talkin'
about bein' in hell, Tappan. Fur's I'm concerned, I'm findin' this a
purty comfertable sort of place."
Amidon was a tall man, and he stretched his length luxuriously as he
spoke. Tappan eyed him malignantly. He was not a pleasant-tempered
man, and now he was both weary and impatient of waiting for his turn
with the barber.
"I should think any man might be comfortable, ef he had a wife takin'
boarders to support him, but mebbe if she was to be asked to tell the
truth, she'd tell a different story," he said. Tappan spoke in a tone
of facetious rage, and the others laughed, all except the barber. He
had a curious respect for his landlady's husband.
"Ef a lady has the undisposition to let her husband subside on her
bounty, it is between them twain. Who God has joined together, let no
man set asunder," said he, bombastically, and even the surly milkman,
and Rosenstein under his manipulating razor, when a laugh was
dangerous, laughed. John Flynn, when he waxed didactic, and made use
of large words and phrases, was the comic column of Banbridge.
Amidon, thus defended, chuckled also, albeit rather foolishly, and
slouched to the door. "Guess I'll drop up and git the Sunday paper.
I'll be in later on, John," he mumbled. He had the grace to be
somewhat ashamed both by the attack and by the defence, and was for
edging out, but stopped on the threshold of the door, arrested by
something which the small man said.
"Talkin' about poor devils, there's one man in Banbridge ain't no
poor devil. S'pose you know we've got a J. P. Morgan right amongst
us?"
"Who?" asked the postmaster; and Amidon, directly now the
conversation was thoroughly shifted from himself, returned to his
former place.
"I know who he means," said he, importantly. "Oh, it's the man what's
rented the Ranger place. They say he's a millionaire."
The milkman straightened himself interestedly. "I rather guess he
is," said he. "They take two quarts of cream every morning, and three
quarts of milk."
"Lord!" said the barber, gaping over his patron's head. "Lord!"
Although very short and slight, the barber had a large face, simple,
amiable with a smirk of conceit as to the lower part; his forehead
was very large and round, as was his head, and his blue eyes were
very placid, even beautiful. The barber never laughed.
"Two quarts of cream!" said the small man. "Whew!"
"He must be rich if he takes all that cream," said the postmaster. "A
half a pint a day about breaks me, but my wife must have it for her
coffee."
Rosenstein had so far got his freedom of speech, for the barber had
never ceased operation to speak, though rather guardedly. "He must be
rich," he said. "Any man in Banbridge that buys as much as he does
from a store in the place, an' wants his bills regular every Saturday
night, has got somethin'."
"Has he paid 'em?" asked the postmaster.
"All except the last one, an' that he didn't pay because I couldn't
cash a check for five hundred and give him the balance. 'Lord, sir,'
says I, 'ef you want a check of that value cashed, you'll have to go
to John Wanamaker. That's as much as I take in Banbridge in a whole
year.' 'Well, mebbe you'll do better this year,' says he, laughing,
and goes out. He's a fine-spoken man, an' it was a lucky day for
Banbridge when he come here."
"He don't buy many postage-stamps," said the postmaster,
thoughtfully, "but he asked me if I should be able to let him have as
much as ten dollars' worth at a time, ef he wanted 'em, an' I said I
should, an' I've just ordered in more. An' he has a big mail."
The barber had been opening his mouth and catching his breath
preparatory to speaking and saying more than any of them. Now he
spoke: "That man's wuth a mighty lot of money now," said he, "but
what he's wuth now ain't nothin' to what he's goin' to be wuth some
day."
"What do you mean, John?" asked Amidon, patronizingly.
"Well, now, I'll tell you what I mean. That man, it's Cap. Carroll
what's just arraigned to Banbridge that you're all talkin' about,
ain't it?"
"Yes. Go ahead."
"Well, now, Cap. Carroll is agoin' to be one of them great
clapatalists, ef he ain't now," he said.
"How?"
"Well, he got holt of some stock that's goin' to bust the market and
turn Wall Street into a mill-stream in less than a year, ef it keeps
on as it has went so fur."
"What is it?" asked the small man.
The milkman sighed wearily. "Oh, slow up yer jaw, and gimme a chance
sometime," he growled. "I want to git home an' git my breakfast. I'm
hungry."
Flynn began hurriedly finishing off Rosenstein, talking with no less
eagerness as he did so. "Well, it's Bonaflora mining-stock, ef you
want to know," he said, importantly.
"Where is it?" asked the postmaster, with a peculiar smile.
"Out West somewhere. It ain't but fifty cents a share, an' it's goin'
up like a skyrocket, an' there's others. There's a new railroad out
there, an' other mines, an' a new invention for makin' fuel out of
coal-dust, an' some other things."
"Is Captain Carroll the president of them?" asked the small man, with
an impressed air. He was very young, and eager-looking, and very
shabby. He grubbed on a tiny ancestral farm, for a living for himself
and wife and four children, young as he was. He had never had enough
to eat, at least of proper food. He did not come to the "Tonsorial
Parlor" to be shaved, for he hacked away at his innocent cheeks at
home with his deceased father's old razor, but he loved a little
gossip. In fact, John Flynn's barber-shop was his one dissipation.
Sometimes he looked longingly at a beer-saloon, but he had no money,
unless he starved Minna and the children, and for that he was too
good and too timid. His Minna was a stout German girl, twice his
size, and she ruled him with a rod of iron. She did not approve of
the barber-shop, and so the pleasure had something of the zest of a
forbidden one.
Every Sunday he was at his wit's end, which was easily reached, to
invent a suitable excuse for his absence. To-day it had been to see
if Mrs. Amidon did not want to buy some apples. Some of their last
winter's store had been miraculously preserved, and Minna saw the way
to a few pennies thereby. He could quite openly say that he had been
to the barber-shop to-day, having seen Amidon there, therefore he was
quite easy in his mind, and leaned back in his chair with perfect
content. One of the children at home cried all the time. A yawning
mouth of wrath at existence was about all he ever saw of that
particular baby, and Minna almost always scolded, and this was a
haven of peace to little Willy Eddy.
Here he felt like a man among men; at home he felt like nothing at
all among women. The children were all girls. Sometimes he wondered
if a boy-baby might not have been a refuge. He was not very clean;
his hands were still stained with picking over potatoes the day
before; his shoulders in their rusty coat had a distinct hunch; but
he was radiantly happy talking of the rich Captain Carroll. He seemed
to taste the honey of the other man's riches and importance in his
own mouth. Willy Eddy did not know the meaning of envy. He had such a
fund of sympathetic imagination that he possessed the fair
possessions of others like a child with fairy tales.
"Is he president of all of them?" asked little Willy Eddy, with
gusto, and looked as if he himself held them all in his meagre
potato-stained hands.
"No," replied the barber, with importance--"no, he's more than a
president. A president is nothin' except a figger-head. I don't care
what he's president of, whether it is of this great country or of
railroads or what not. They could git along without the president,
but they can't without this gentleman. He's the promoter."
"Oh!" said the small man.
The milkman sighed wrathfully again. "Oh, hang it all!" he said.
"I've seed promoters. It's mostly their own pockets they promote."
"Well, I don't know," said the postmaster, as one with authority. "I
don't know. Captain Carroll was in the office the other day, and we
had a little talk, and it struck me that some of the ventures he is
interested in were quite promising. And it is different with a man of
his wealth. When a poor man takes up anything of the kind, you can
suspect, but this is different. He said to me that he had no
occasion, so far as the money was concerned, to turn his finger over
for any of them or to open his mouth concerning them. He said he
would not be afraid to stake every dollar he had in the world on them
if it was necessary."
Flynn had daintily anointed Rosenstein's shaven face with witch-hazel
and was now dusting it with powder. Tappan was slouching towards the
chair.
"Have you bought some of the stock?" the barber asked, abruptly, of
the postmaster, who smiled mysteriously and hedged.
"Well, maybe I have, and maybe again I haven't," said he. "Have you,
John?"
"Not yet," replied the barber. "I am deflecting upon the matter. It
requires considerable loggitation when a man has penuriously saved a
circumscribed sum from the sweat of his brow."
"That's so. Don't be rash, John," said Amidon.
It was not especially funny, but since Amidon intended it to be, they
all obligingly laughed, except Tappan, who set himself with a grunt
in the chair and had the white sheet of which Rosenstein had been
denuded tied around his neck.
Rosenstein, who was a lean man, with a much-lined face, cast a glance
at himself in the looking-glass, and heaved an odd sigh as he turned
away to get his hat.
"You don't seem to be much stuck on your looks, old man," remarked
Amidon.
Rosenstein cast a perfectly good-humored but rather melancholy look
at Amidon. "No; I never was," he replied, soberly. "Can't remember
when I wouldn't have preferred to meet some other fellow in the
looking-glass. It's such an awful thing, the intimacy with himself
that's forced on a man when he comes into this world."
"That's so," assented Amidon, rather stupidly, but he was not to be
abashed with the other man's metaphysics. Rosenstein did credit to
his German ancestry at times, and was then in deep waters for his
village acquaintances.
"Who would you ruther meet in the lookin'-glass than yerself?"
pursued Amidon.
"Not you," replied Rosenstein, with unexpected repartee, and was
going out amid a chorus of glee at Amidon's discomfiture when another
man darkened the doorway, and the storekeeper fell back as Captain
Carroll entered amid a sullen silence.
The postmaster rose, and in a second the small man and Amidon
followed his example. Carroll greeted them all with a cordiality
which had in it a certain implication of admiring confidence. Not a
man there but felt at once that this new-comer had a most flattering
recognition of himself in particular, to the exclusion of all the
others. It was odd how he contrived to produce this impression, but
produce it he did. It was Arthur Carroll's great charm, the great
secret of a remarkable influence over his fellow-men. He appealed
with consummate skill to the selfish side of every one with whom he
came in contact, he exalted him in his own eyes far above the masses
with whom he was surrounded, by who could tell what subtle alchemy.
Each man preened unconsciously his panoply of spiritual pride under
this other man's gentle, courteous eyes. Even Rosenstein straightened
himself. And besides, this was the respectful admiration which the
man himself excited, by reason of his fine appearance and address,
his good looks, his irreproachable clothes, and his reputed wealth.
Arthur Carroll made an entrance into the "Tonsorial Parlor."
Moreover, the other men could see out in front of the establishment,
the coach, the coachman in livery--the first livery on record as
actually resident in Banbridge; liveries had passed through, but
never before tarried--the fretting steeds with their glittering
equipment. Around the coach had already gathered several small boys,
huddled together, and transfixed with awe too deep for impudence.
Carroll, having greeted the men, said good-morning urbanely to the
barber, who had ceased lathering Tappan and was looking at him
indeterminately. It seemed dreadful to him that this great man should
have to wait for the milkman. The barber was a conservative to the
core, and would speak of the laboring-classes and tradesmen as if he
himself were on the other side of the highway from birth. Tappan
himself, who, as said before, was naturally surly, was also a
dissenter on principle, and had an enlarged sense of injury, had
qualms at keeping waiting a man who patronized him to the extent of
two quarts of cream and three quarts of milk daily. It was like
quarrelling with his bread-and-butter, as he put it, when alluding to
the affair later on.
"I ain't goin' through the world seein' no men as is better 'n I be,"
he said, "but there's jest this much about it, I ain't a fool, an' I
know enough to open the door when a man wants to walk through to pay
me some money. Ef Carroll hadn't been takin' that much cream and
milk, I'd set there in that barber's-chair ef I'd had a year's beard
to shave, an' I'd kept him waitin', and enjoyed it, but, as it was, I
did what I did."
What Tappan did was to wave back Flynn's lathering-hand, and to say,
rather splutteringly, that he would wait, "ef Captain Carroll was in
a hurry."
But Captain Carroll was in no hurry, it seemed, and, moreover, gave
the impression that if he had been about to catch a railroad train to
keep an important business engagement, he would not have dreamed of
thrusting himself in before the milkman with his milk all delivered.
He, moreover, gave the impression that he considered the milkman a
polished gentleman for his handsome offer, and all this without
saying so much. Captain Carroll seated himself, and completed the
impression by tendering everybody cigars. Then the "Tonsorial Parlor"
and its patrons waiting for a Sunday-morning shave became a truly
genteel function. Willy Eddy, who was dreamily imaginative, and read
the Sunday papers when his Minna gave him a chance and did not chide
him for the waste of money, remembered things he had read about the
swagger New York clubs. He smoked away and made-believe he was a
clubman, and enjoyed himself artlessly. The sun got farther around
and the south window was a sheet of burning radiance. It became
rather too warm, and on Carroll making a motion to move his chair
into the shade, every other man moved into the sunshine, and sat
sweltering and smoking in a fatuous vainglory. The canary bird
hopped faster and faster. The gold-fishes swam with a larger
school of bright reflections. A bumblebee flew in the open window
and buzzed dangerously near the hero's head. Willy Eddy rose and,
ostentatiously, at his own risk, drove the intruder away, and was
gratefully thanked. Truly hero-worship, while it is often foolish and
fool-making, is not the worst sentiment of mankind. When the great
man made a move to order his coachman to take the wonderful rig away,
and drive, because the horses were restive and needed exercise, and
he himself--the delicate humor of the thing--also needed exercise and
would walk home, Amidon sped in his service as he had never sped in
the service of the long-suffering wife, at that moment struggling
painfully with the Sunday dinner, and bringing wood from the shed to
replenish the fire.
Carroll did not need to lead up to his mining and other interests.
The subject was broached at once by the others. The postmaster opened
it. He spoke with less humility than the others, as being more on a
footing of equality.
"Well, captain, heard lately from the Boniflora?" he asked,
knowingly. And Carroll replied that he had received a letter from the
manager the night before which gave most encouraging information
concerning the prospects.
"Anything of the United Fuel?" continued the postmaster.
"Large block just sold, at an advance of six and three-eighths,"
replied Carroll, blowing the smoke from his mouth. Carroll inspired
confidence by the very quietness and lack of enthusiasm with which he
spoke of his enterprises. All his listeners thought privately that he
was in no way anxious to sell his stock, after all. Perhaps,
moreover, he did not intend to sell any but large blocks. Little
Willy Eddy ventured to ask for information on the latter point.
"Mebbe you don't keer nothin' about sellin' of it unless it is in big
lumps?" he queried, timidly. He was thinking of a matter of $250
which his father had saved from pension-money, and was still in the
savings-bank. Carroll replied (but with the greatest indifference)
that they often sold stock in very small blocks, and the confidence
of them waxed apace. Amidon thought of a little money which his wife
had saved from her boarders, and the barber immediately resolved to
invest every cent he had in the United Fuel. Such was Captain
Carroll's graciousness and urbanity that he idled away an hour in the
barber-shop, and the other men melted away, although reluctantly,
from an atmosphere of such effulgence. The milkman's hollow stomach
drove him home for his breakfast. Little Willy Eddy thought uneasily
of his Minna, and took his departure. The postmaster had a Sunday
mail to sort. And Amidon went out to get a drink of beer; Carroll's
cigar had dried his throat. Carroll was shaven last, and Flynn did
his best by him, even unto a new jar of cold cream, double the
quantity of witch-hazel, and a waste of powder. Then after he had
carefully adjusted his hat, and was at last about to go, Flynn
stopped him.
"Beg your pardon, sir," said he, "but--"
"But what?" said Carroll, rather kindly.
The barber's lip was actually quivering. The magnitude and importance
of what he was about to propose almost affected his weakly emotional
nature to tears.
He finally made out to say, while tears were actually rolling down
his cheeks under Carroll's puzzled regard, that he had $1000 which he
had saved, and he would like to invest every penny of it in United
Fuel. And before Carroll knew what he was at, he had actually
produced $1000 in a bulky roll of much-befingered notes, from some
hiding-place, and was waving them before Carroll's eyes.
"Here," said he, "here is the money. You may as well take it now. You
can get the securities in New York to-morrow, and bring them out on
the train. Here is the money. Take it."
Arthur Carroll did not move to take the money. He stood looking at
the excited man with a curious expression. In fact, his face seemed
to reflect the emotion of the barber's. His voice was a trifle husky.
"Is that all you have saved?" he asked.
"Every dollar," replied the barber, continuing to wave and thrust the
bills, but he raised an edge of his apron to his eyes, overflowing
with the stupendousness of it. "Every dollar. I might have saved
more, but I've been laid up winters considerable with grippe, and
folks don't like to be shaved by a grippy barber. Dunno's I blame
'em. I've had to hire, and hirin' comes high. I've had considerable
to do for a widder with four children, too--she's my brother's
widder--an', take it all together, I 'ain't been able to save another
dollar. But that don't make no odds, as long as I'm going to double
it in that stock of yourn. Take it."
Carroll backed away almost sternly. "I don't want your money," he
said.
The barber stood aghast. Captain Carroll had actually a look of
offence.
"I hope as I hain't done nothin' that ain't reg'lar," he stammered.
Captain Carroll stepped close to him. He laid one white long-fingered
hand on the barber's white jacket-sleeve. He whispered with slyest
confidence, although no one was within hearing:
"You keep that money a little while longer," he whispered. "I
wouldn't say it to every man, but I will to you. There's going to be
a lawsuit, and the stock may drop a point or two. It won't drop much,
and it will recover more than it loses, but then is the time to buy,
especially when you want a big block, and--I'll let you know."
"Thank you, thank you," said the barber, restoring the bills to a
greasy old pocket-book. He was faint with gratitude. "All right," he
said, and he nodded and winked with intensest comprehension. "All
right. You let me know."
"Yes, I'll let you know when it is best to invest," repeated Carroll.
He turned on the threshold. "See here," he said, "if I were you, I'd
put that money in a bank. I wouldn't keep it here."
"Oh, nobody knows it's here, except you, and you are safe, I ruther
guess."
The barber laughed like a child. Carroll went out and passed up the
street. He heard from the Episcopal church the sound of singing.
Finally he left it behind. He was passing along a short extent where
there were no houses. On one side there was a waste tract of land,
and on the other a stretch of private grounds. The private grounds
were bordered by a budding hedge, the waste lot bristled with strong
young weeds. Carroll, as he swung along with his stately carriage of
the head and shoulders, took out his pocket-book. It was an
important-looking affair, the size of bank-notes. He opened it. There
was not a vestige of money within. He laughed a little softly to
himself, and replaced it. He lived on a street which diverged at
right angles from the main street. Just as he was about turning the
corner, a runabout in which were seated two men passed him. It
stopped, and the men turned and looked back at him. Then before
Carroll turned the corner, one hailed him:
"Hullo!" he said.
"Hullo!" returned Carroll, and stood waiting while the man swung his
trap round with cautious hisses--he drove a high-stepping mare.
"Are you a man by the name of Carroll?" said he, holding the fretting
mare tightly, and seesawing the lines, as she tried to dart first one
way, then the other.
Carroll nodded.
"Well, look a-here," said the man, "I heerd you wanted to buy some
hosses."
"You heard rightly," said Carroll.
"Wall, I've got a pair that can't be beat. Kentucky bred,
four-year-old, sound as a whip. Not an out."
"Are you a trader?"
"Yep. Hed them hosses in last week. New-Yorker jest sent for 'em,
then he died sudden, and his heirs threw 'em on the market at a
sacrifice."
Carroll looked at the men, and they looked at him. The two men in the
runabout resembled each other, and were evidently brothers. Carroll's
eyes on the men were sharp, so were theirs on him. Carroll's eyes
were looking for knavery, and the men's were looking for suspicion of
knavery.
"How much?" asked Carroll, finally.
The men looked at each other. One made a motion with his lips; the
other nodded.
"Fifteen hundred," said the first speaker, "and damned cheap."
"Well, you can bring them around, and I'll look at them," said
Carroll. "Any night after seven."
Carroll walked on, turning up the road which led to his own house,
and the men whirled about again and then drove on, the mare breaking
into a gallop.