David Harum Part 13

No answer this time: theory confirmed.

"My name's Robinson," imparted that individual. "I run the prince'ple liv'ry to Homeville."

"Ah!" responded the pa.s.senger.

"What d'you say your name was?" asked Mr. Robinson, after he had steered his team around one of the monuments to public spirit.

"It's Lenox," said John, thinking he might concede something to such deserving perseverance, "but I don't remember mentioning it."

"Now I think on't, I guess you didn't," admitted Mr. Robinson. "Don't think I ever knowed anybody of the name," he remarked. "Used to know some folks name o' Lynch, but they couldn't 'a' ben no relations o'

your'n, I guess." This conjecture elicited no reply.

"Git up, goll darn ye!" he exclaimed, as one of the horses stumbled, and he gave it a jerk and a cut of the whip. "Bought that hoss of Dave Harum," he confided to his pa.s.senger. "Fact, I bought both on 'em of him, an' dum well stuck I was, too," he added.

"You know Mr. Harum, then," said John, with a glimmer of interest. "Does he deal in horses?"

"Wa'al, I guess I make eout to know him," a.s.serted the "prince'ple liv'ryman," "an' he'll git up 'n the middle o' the night any time to git the best of a hoss trade. Be you goin' to work fer him?" he asked, encouraged to press the question. "Goin' to take Timson's place?"

"Really," said John, in a tone which advanced Mr. Robinson's opinion to a rooted conviction, "I have never heard of Mr. Timson."

"He's the feller that Dave's lettin' go," explained Mr. Robinson. "He's ben in the bank a matter o' five or six year, but Dave got down on him fer some little thing or other, an' he's got his walkin' papers. He says to me, says he, 'If any feller thinks he c'n come up here f'm N'York or anywheres else, he says, 'an' do Dave Harum's work to suit him, he'll find he's bit off a dum sight more'n he c'n chaw. He'd better keep his gripsack packed the hull time,' Chet says."

"I thought I'd sock it to the cuss a little," remarked Mr. Robinson in recounting the conversation subsequently; and, in truth, it was not elevating to the spirits of our friend, who found himself speculating whether or no Timson might not be right.

"Where you goin' to put up?" asked Mr. Robinson after an interval, having failed to draw out any response to his last effort.

"Is there more than one hotel?" inquired the pa.s.senger.

"The's the Eagle, an' the Lake House, an' Smith's Hotel," replied Jehu.

"Which would you recommend?" asked John.

"Wa'al," said Robinson, "I don't gen'ally praise up one more'n another.

You see, I have more or less dealin' with all on 'em."

"That's very diplomatic of you, I'm sure," remarked John, not at all diplomatically. "I think I will try the Eagle."

Mr. Robinson, in his account of the conversation, said in confidence--not wis.h.i.+ng to be openly invidious--that "he was dum'd if he wa'n't almost sorry he hadn't recommended the Lake House."

It may be inferred from the foregoing that the first impression which our friend made on his arrival was not wholly in his favor, and Mr.

Robinson's conviction that he was "stuck up," and a person bound to get himself "gen'ally disliked," was elevated to an article of faith by his retiring to the rear of the vehicle, and quite out of ordinary range.

But they were nearly at their journey's end, and presently the carryall drew up at the Eagle Hotel.

It was a frame building of three stories, with a covered veranda running the length of the front, from which two doors gave entrance--one to the main hall, the other to the office and bar combined. This was rather a large room, and was also to be entered from the main hall.

John's luggage was deposited, Mr. Robinson was settled with, and took his departure without the amenities which might have prevailed under different conditions, and the new arrival made his way into the office.

Behind the bar counter, which faced the street, at one end of which was a small high desk and at the other a glazed case containing three or four partly full boxes of forlorn-looking cigars, but with most ambitious labels, stood the proprietor, manager, clerk, and what not of the hostelry, embodied in the single person of Mr. Amos Elright, who was leaning over the counter in conversation with three or four loungers who sat about the room with their chairs tipped back against the wall.

A sketch of Mr. Elright would have depicted a dull "complected" person of a tousled baldness, whose dispirited expression of countenance was enhanced by a chin whisker. His s.h.i.+rt and collar gave unmistakable evidence that pajamas or other night-gear were regarded as superfluities, and his most conspicuous garment as he appeared behind the counter was a cardigan jacket of a frowsiness beyond compare. A greasy neck scarf was embellished with a gem whose truthfulness was without pretence. The atmosphere of the room was accounted for by a remark which was made by one of the loungers as John came in. "Say, Ame," the fellow drawled, "I guess the' was more skunk cabbidge 'n pie plant 'n usual 'n that last lot o' cigars o' your'n, wa'n't the'?" to which insinuation "Ame" was spared the necessity of a rejoinder by our friend's advent.

"Wa'al, guess we c'n give ye a room. Oh, yes, you c'n register if you want to. Where is the dum thing? I seen it last week somewhere. Oh, yes," producing a thin book ruled for accounts from under the counter, "we don't alwus use it," he remarked--which was obvious, seeing that the last entry was a month old.

John concluded that it was a useless formality. "I should like something to eat," he said, "and desire to go to my room while it is being prepared; and can you send my luggage up now?"

"Wa'al," said Mr. Elright, looking at the clock, which showed the hour of half-past nine, and rubbing his chin perplexedly, "supper's ben cleared off some time ago."

"I don't want very much," said John; "just a bit of steak, and some stewed potatoes, and a couple of boiled eggs, and some coffee." He might have heard the sound of a slap in the direction of one of the sitters.

"I'm 'fraid I can't 'commodate ye fur's the steak an' things goes,"

confessed the landlord. "We don't do much cookin' after dinner, an' I reckon the fire's out anyway. P'r'aps," he added doubtfully, "I c'd hunt ye up a piece o' pie 'n some doughnuts, or somethin' like that."

He took a key, to which was attached a huge bra.s.s tag with serrated edges, from a hook on a board behind the bar--on which were suspended a number of the like--lighted a small kerosene lamp, carrying a single wick, and, shuffling out from behind the counter, said, "Say, Bill, can't you an' d.i.c.k carry the gentleman's trunks up to 'thirteen?'" and, as they a.s.sented, he gave the lamp and key to one of them and left the room. The two men took a trunk at either end and mounted the stairs, John following, and when the second one came up he put his fingers into his waistcoat pocket suggestively.

"No," said the one addressed as d.i.c.k, "that's all right. We done it to oblige Ame."

"I'm very much obliged to you, though," said John.

"Oh, that's all right," remarked d.i.c.k as they turned away.

John surveyed the apartment. There were two small-paned windows overlooking the street, curtained with bright "Turkey-red" cotton; near to one of them a small wood stove and a wood box, containing some odds and ends of sticks and bits of bark; a small chest of drawers, serving as a washstand; a malicious little looking-gla.s.s; a basin and ewer, holding about two quarts; an earthenware mug and soap-dish, the latter containing a thin bit of red translucent soap scented with sa.s.safras; an ordinary wooden chair and a rocking-chair with rockers of divergent aims; a yellow wooden bedstead furnished with a mattress of "excelsior"

(calculated to induce early rising), a dingy white spread, a gray blanket of coa.r.s.e wool, a pair of cotton sheets which had too obviously done duty since pa.s.sing through the hands of the laundress, and a pair of flabby little pillows in the same state, in respect to their cases, as the sheets. On the floor was a much used and faded ingrain carpet, in one place worn through by the edge of a loose board. A narrow strip of unpainted pine nailed to the wall carried six or seven wooden pegs to serve as wardrobe. Two diminutive towels with red borders hung on the rail of the washstand, and a battered tin slop jar, minus a cover, completed the inventory.

"Heavens, what a hole!" exclaimed John, and as he performed his ablutions (not with the sa.s.safras soap) he promised himself a speedy flitting. There came a knock at the door, and his host appeared to announce that his "tea" was ready, and to conduct him to the dining-room--a good-sized apartment, but narrow, with a long table running near the center lengthwise, covered with a cloth which bore the marks of many a fray. Another table of like dimensions, but bare, was shoved up against the wall. Mr. Elright's ravagement of the larder had resulted in a triangle of cadaverous apple pie, three doughnuts, some chunks of soft white cheese, and a plate of what are known as oyster crackers.

"I couldn't git ye no tea," he said. "The hired girls both gone out, an'

my wife's gone to bed, an' the' wa'n't no fire anyway."

"I suppose I could have some beer," suggested John, looking dubiously at the banquet.

"We don't keep no ale," said the proprietor of the Eagle, "an' I guess we're out o' lawger. I ben intendin' to git some more," he added.

"A gla.s.s of milk?" proposed the guest, but without confidence.

"Milkman didn't come to-night," said Mr. Elright, shuffling off in his carpet slippers, worn out in spirit with the importunities of the stranger. There was water on the table, for it had been left there from supper time. John managed to consume a doughnut and some crackers and cheese, and then went to his room, carrying the water pitcher with him, and, after a cigarette or two and a small potation from his flask, to bed. Before retiring, however, he stripped the bed with the intention of turning the sheets, but upon inspection thought better of it, and concluded to leave them as they were. So pa.s.sed his first night in Homeville, and, as he fondly promised himself, his last at the Eagle Hotel.

When Bill and d.i.c.k returned to the office after "obligin' Ame," they stepped with one accord to the counter and looked at the register. "Why, darn it," exclaimed Bill, "he didn't sign his name, after all."

"No," said d.i.c.k, "but I c'n give a putty near guess who he is, all the same."

"Some drummer?" suggested Bill.

"Naw," said Richard scornfully. "What 'd a drummer be doin' here this time o' year? That's the feller that's ousted Chet Timson, an' I'll bet ye the drinks on't. Name's Linx or Lenx, or somethin' like that. Dave told me."

"So that's the feller, is it?" said Bill. "I guess he won't stay 'round here long. I guess you'll find he's a little too toney fer these parts, an' in pertic'ler fer Dave Harum. Dave'll make him feel 'bout as comf'table as a rooster in a pond. Lord," he exclaimed, slapping his leg with a guffaw, "'d you notice Ame's face when he said he didn't want much fer supper, only beefsteak, an' eggs, an' tea, an' coffee, an' a few little things like that? I thought I'd split."

"Yes," said d.i.c.k, laughing, "I guess the' ain't nothin' the matter with Ame's heart, or he'd 'a' fell down dead.--Hullo, Ame!" he said when the gentleman in question came back after ministering to his guest, "got the Prince o' Wales fixed up all right? Did ye cut that pickled el'phant that come last week?"