Mr. Timson was leaning over the counter in animated controversy with a man on the outside who had evidently asserted or quoted (the quotation is the usual weapon: it has a double barb and can be wielded with comparative safety) something of a wounding effect.
“No, sir,” exclaimed Chet, with a sounding slap on the counter, “no, sir! The’ ain’t one word o’ truth in’t. I said myself, ‘I won’t stan’ it,’ I says, ‘not f’m you ner nobody else,’ I says, ‘an’ what’s more,’ says I—” The expression in the face of Mr. Timson’s tormentor caused that gentleman to break off and look around. The man on the outside grinned, stared at John a moment, and went out, and Timson turned and said, as John came forward, “Hello! The old man picked ye to pieces all he wanted to?”
“We are through for the day, I fancy,” said our friend, smiling, “and if you are ready to begin my lessons I am ready to take them. Mr. Harum told me that you would be good enough to show me what was necessary.”
“All right,” said Mr. Timson readily enough, and so John began his first day’s work in David’s office. He was surprised and encouraged to find how much his experience in Rush & Company’s office stood him in hand, and managed to acquire in a comparatively short time a pretty fair comprehension of the system which prevailed in “Harum’s bank,” notwithstanding the incessant divagations of his instructor.
It was decided between Timson and our friend that on the following day the latter should undertake the office work under supervision, and the next morning John was engaged upon the preliminaries of the day’s business when his employer came in and seated himself at his desk in the back room. After a few minutes, in which he was busy with his letters, he appeared in the doorway of the front room. He did not speak, for John saw him, and, responding to a backward toss of the head, followed him into the “parlor,” and at an intimation of the same silent character shut the doors. Mr. Harum sat down at his desk, and John stood awaiting his pleasure.
“How ’d ye make out yestidy?” he asked. “Git anythin’ out of old tongue-tied?” pointing with his thumb toward the front room.
“Oh, yes,” said John, smiling, as he recalled the unceasing flow of words which had enveloped Timson’s explanations.
“How much longer do you think you’ll have to have him ’round?” asked Mr. Harum.
“Well,” said John, “of course your customers are strangers to me, but so far as the routine of the office is concerned I think I can manage after today. But I shall have to appeal to you rather often for a while until I get thoroughly acquainted with my work.”
“Good fer you,” said David. “You’ve took holt a good sight quicker ’n I thought ye would, an’ I’ll spend more or less time ’round here fer a while, or be where you c’n reach me. It’s like this,” he continued; “Chet’s a helpless kind of critter, fer all his braggin’ an’ talk, an’ I ben feelin’ kind o’ wambly about turnin’ him loose—though the Lord knows,” he said with feeling, “ ’t I’ve had bother enough with him to kill a tree. But anyway I wrote to some folks I know up to Syrchester to git something fer him to do, an’ I got a letter to send him along, an’ mebbe they’d give him a show. See?”
“Yes, sir,” said John, “and if you are willing to take the chances of my mistakes I will undertake to get on without him.”
“All right,” said the banker, “we’ll call it a heat—and, say, don’t let on what I’ve told you. I want to see how long it’ll take to git all over the village that he didn’t ask no odds o’ nobody. Hadn’t ben out o’ a job three days ’fore the’ was a lot o’ chances, an’ all ’t he had to do was to take his pick out o’ the lot on ’em.”
“Really?” said John.
“Yes, sir,” said David. “Some folks is gaited that way. Amusin’, ain’t it?—Hullo, Dick! Wa’al?”
“Willis’ll give two hunderd fer the sorr’l colt,” said the incomer, whom John recognized as one of the loungers in the Eagle bar the night of his arrival.
“E-um’m!” said David. “Was he speakin’ of any pertic’ler colt, or sorril colts in gen’ral? I hain’t got the only one the’ is, I s’pose.”
Dick merely laughed. “Because,” continued the owner of the “sorril colt,” “if Steve Willis wants to lay in sorril colts at two hunderd a piece, I ain’t goin’ to gainsay him, but you tell him that two-forty-nine ninety-nine won’t buy the one in my barn.” Dick laughed again.
John made a move in the direction of the front room.
“Hold on a minute,” said David. “Shake hands with Mr. Larrabee.”
“Seen ye before,” said Dick, as they shook hands. “I was in the barroom when you come in the other night,” and then he laughed as at the recollection of something very amusing.
John flushed a little and said, a bit stiffly, “I remember you were kind enough to help about my luggage.”
“Excuse me,” said Dick, conscious of the other’s manner. “I wa’n’t laughin’ at you, that is, not in pertic’ler. I couldn’t see your face when Ame offered ye pie an’ doughnuts instid of beefsteak an’ fixins. I c’d only guess at that; but Ame’s face was enough fer me,” and Dick went off into another cachinnation.
David’s face indicated some annoyance. “Oh, shet up,” he exclaimed. “You’d keep that yawp o’ your’n goin’, I believe, if it was the judgment day.”
“Wa’al,” said Dick with a grin, “I expect the’ might be some fun to be got out o’ that, if a feller wa’n’t worryin’ too much about his own skin; an’ as fur’s I’m concerned—” Dick’s further views on
