Old Ebenezer | Page 5

ever put on to cause you to size me up that way? Have I ever shown any tax receipts? Have I ever given any swell dinners? Sixty-five cents is the amount I am short, Judge, and where I am to get it, the Lord only knows. My paper is lying over yonder in the express office, doing no good to anybody, but they won't let me take it out and stamp intelligence upon it. The town sits gaping for the news, with a bad eye on me; but what can I do with a great corporation arrayed against me? For sixty-five cents I could get the paper out, and it's full of bright things. The account of your defense of the sheep thief is about as amusing a thing as I ever read, and it will be copied all over the country; it would put a nation in a good humor irrespective of party affiliations, but sixty-five millions of people are to be cheated, and all on account of sixty-five cents, one cent to the million."
"Things are down to a low mark when you have to make your estimates on that basis. One cent to the million," said Lyman with a quiet laugh.
"Distressful," Warren replied. "The country was never in such a fix before. Why, last year about this time I raised eighty cents without any trouble at all."
"Yes," said Lyman, "you raised it of me."
"That's a fact," Warren admitted. "But do you think the country is as well off now as it was then?"
"Not financially, but it may be wiser."
"Now, look here, Judge, am I to accept this as an insinuation?"
"How so?" Lyman asked, looking up, his eyes full of mischief.
"Why, speaking of being wiser. I don't know but you meant--well, that you were too wise to help me out again. You can't deny that the notice of the partnership was all right."
"We have no complaint to enter on that ground," Caruthers drawled.
"Pardon me, Chancellor, but it wasn't your put-in," Warren replied. "Your suggestions are worth money and you ought not to throw them away. But the question is, can I get sixty-five cents out of this firm?"
"Warren," said Lyman, "I am in sympathy with your cheerful distress."
"But are you willing to shoulder the debt of sixty-five millions of people? Are you in a position to do that?"
"No," Caruthers drawled, leaning over with a strain and picking up his pipe from the floor.
"Chancellor," said the editor, "as wise as you are, your example is sometimes pernicious and your counsel implies evil."
"Oh, I am simply speaking for the firm," Caruthers replied. "As an individual Lyman can do as he pleases with his capital. Come in, sir."
Some one was tapping at the door, and Lyman, looking around, recognized the short and wheezing bulk of Uncle Buckley Lightfoot, the oracle. He almost tumbled out his chair to grasp the old fellow by the hand; and then, smoothing his conduct, he introduced him, with impressive ceremony.
"Yes, sir," said the old man, sitting down and looking about, "he got away from us a little the rise of a year ago, and I don't think Fox Grove has been the same since then; and it is a generally accepted fact that the children don't learn more than half as much. Me and Jimmie and Lige agreed on this point, and that settled it so far as the community was concerned. And Sammy, we hear that you have got to be a great lawyer. A man came through our county not long ago and boasted of knowing you, and a lawyer must amount to a good deal when folks go about boasting that they know him. And look here, my wife read a piece out of the paper about you--yes, sir, read it off just like she was a talkin'; and when she was done I 'lowed that maybe, after all, you hadn't done such an unwise thing to throw yourself headlong into the excitement of this town. And mother she said that no matter where a man went, he could still find the Lord if he looked about in the right way, and I didn't dispute her, but just kept on a sittin' there, a wallopin' my tobacco about in my mouth. Yes, sir; I am powerful tickled to see you."
Long before he had reached the end of his harangue, Warren had taken hold of his arm. "It was my paper your wife read it in," he said in tones as solemn as grace over meat. "I am the editor of the paper, and two dollars will get it every week for a year."
The old man shrugged himself out of the editor's imploring clasp, and looked at him. "Why," said he, "you don't appear to be more than old enough to have just come out