The Forged Note Part 24

"He's going out to Liberty Street Baptist Church to sing and sell them Sunday, providing he gets them in time." She typed a few letters, and then said:

"He says he would like to go to Effingham with you and sell books, but that you want too much for it. That the book is too high, and you want to make too much. He says the book ought to sell for a dollar, and he should be paid seventy-five cents for selling it."

"He wouldn't make a living selling it then," retorted Wyeth, somewhat impatiently. Then he thought of Mrs. King, who fed him most of the time.

The following Monday, Wyeth thought he had fallen heir to a fortune. He pa.s.sed him in the hallway, with head high, and as serious as zero.

Mrs. Lautier imparted the reason for it, when Sidney had taken out the letters.

"Mr. Coleman had a great day yesterday, so he informed me," she smiled.

"He said you should have been out to Liberty Street Baptist Church, and heard him sing and sell song books afterwards. He said you were not a Christian, however, which made it bad."

"How many song books did he sell, and what did he receive a copy for them?"

"I think six, and he received fifteen cents apiece," she replied. He entered at this moment, his face wreathed in triumphant smiles.

"Well, my doubting friend, if you would have taken the trouble to come out to Liberty Street Baptist Church yesterday, I think you would have been convinced that I am something of a salesman after all."

"I've just been told that you 'mopped' up," said Wyeth, heartily. Slim swelled perceptibly. He seated himself, crossed his legs, and resumed:

"When I used to live in South Carolina, I was considered one of the best salesman in the country."

"You must have been a great man in South Carolina," said Wyeth. Slim observed him a moment sharply. Presently he went on:

"I would go to the camp meetings and festivals, sing a few songs, get the people warmed up with a good sermon, and then sell hundreds of song books in the end."

"Wonderful!" from Sidney.

"I am going to the HNRTYU convention at Timberdale Thursday, and I thought you'd like to go along," he said, artfully.

"Couldn't very well do it, unless you got them to hold the convention over until next week."

"You _will_ not take me seriously, regardless of my success," he complained. "Now yesterday I sold a pile of song books, and today I am sending the man his share of the money. I could do you some good with the book you are general agent for, if you would increase my commission to seventy-five cents a copy, and lower the price to a dollar."

"If you wrote the publishers, they might give you the books free of charge, providing you agreed to pay the freight on arrival, and not let the railroad company come back on them later for it," soliloquized Sidney.

He went to Timberdale the next day, and the office saw no more of him for a week.

"When will Mr. Coleman return?" Mrs. Lautier would inquire every day. "I certainly do miss him."

"He's our mascot, our jest. I miss him also," said Sidney, and they both spoke of him at some length.

Mrs. Lautier was also a sociable person about the office, Sidney was coming to appreciate more each day. She was from New Orleans, and a creole. She had personality, and a way that won all who were near her.

She was slender and very dark, and, although only thirty-nine, was almost white-haired, which contrasted beautifully with her dark skin.

Her eyes were small and bead-like, while she was affectionate by nature.

Her make-up was in keeping with the position she held as matron at one of the local Negro colleges. When she spoke, her voice struck the ear musically. She was a widow.

"Why have you never remarried, Mrs. Lautier?" Wyeth ventured, one day.

She colored unseen for a moment, before she answered:

"Perhaps there's a reason."

"What reason? You are charming--very charming, I think," said he earnestly, although he smiled.

She hid her face. For a woman of her age, she was most extraordinary. "I have been told that creole people have a most frightful temper," pursued Wyeth, enjoying her manner. "Is that quite true?"

"Yes," She admitted, surveying him now.

"And do you happen to be endowed with such an a.s.set, also?"

"I wouldn't be a creole if I were not," she advised, still smiling.

"That's too bad," said he, a trifle sadly. "You seem too kind and sweet of manner, to be liable to those angry, wild fits they tell me they have."

"Perhaps you will see New Orleans while you are in the south, and the creoles; and then, you can be better prepared to understand them in the future," she said.

"Perhaps I will," he said, after some thinking. "Yes, perhaps I will. I had not thought of it before."

"Mr. Coleman will be back tomorrow," cried Mrs. Lautier, entering the office a day or so later. "I received a postal from him announcing the fact, so we will not be so lonesome now."

"I am anxious to see what he did in Timberdale. I guess he succeeded in turning it upside down, and covering the whole town with song books."

The next morning, early, he was back. He entered the office and sat around in silence, seeming to be in an introspective mood. Wyeth waited for what he knew would eventually come. It did not as early as it usually did, in fact, he sighed wearily and looked so peculiar, until Wyeth, to break the impatience he was laboring under, presently turned his gaze upon him, and said: "Well, I see you are back...." The other sat up and looked about him suddenly, as though awakened from a trance.

"I suppose you have more money now than you can conveniently use for a while," Wyeth tested. "Made a bunch in Timberdale?"

"Like h.e.l.l!" spat the other grumblingly. "Lucky to be back here alive."

"M-m! What did you run up against? A freight train, or the madam?"

"I left the day she arrived," he said in a heavy tone, then added, after a pause: "They've been lynching and driving n.i.g.g.a's out of that town this week, so the convention was a fizzle."

"I suppose you sold out before they got after you? How many song books did you sell?"

"Didn't I tell you the white people was raising h.e.l.l, and a-killing and burning Negroes like barbecue out there!" he exclaimed impatiently. "I never sold any song books, but I sold one copy of _The Tempest_."

"How many song books of the amount you received have you still on hand?"

"All but six."

"I thought you had sold them all but a dozen when you left for Timberdale."

"Aw, that old n.i.g.g.a that I left them with, and who claimed he could sell them at his church and more, slipped them back into my room while I was away. He didn't sell any."

"You don't seem to be getting back into your old-time selling form very rapidly," suggested Wyeth. Ignoring him, Slim said suddenly: