Chapter II
"A goodly, portly man, i's faith, and a corpulent: of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or by'r lady, inclining to three score."
It had been a good morning, thought Mendenhall. If only more citizens like this big, talkative, prosperous looking stranger would settle in Elmsdale! Over a thousand dollars' worth in one bill—not bad, that, for a little rural New York town. Moreover, the stranger had evinced a taste in his selection of furniture and carpets scarcely to be expected from his slightly overdressed appearance and his loud, dominating talk. His choice had been always swift and certain, wholly unaffected by prices. Obviously, a self-made man, with a long purse, this.
The big man threw up his hands in mock surrender. "Time—King's X—'nuff!" he bellowed, a pervading and infectious smile spreading over his broad, jovial, smooth-shaven face. "Police! Nine—eleven—twelve hundred, sixty-eight. I'll pay you a hundred to bind the—No, I'll just pay you now and have done with it. Don't want the stuff delivered till some time next week, though. Wife'll run up to-morrow or next day to take her choice of the two houses I've been looking at. Then, paper-hanging, mantels, plumbing and all that—Make it even twelve-fifty?" he demanded, pen poised in a plump, white hand, eying the dealer with shrewd expectancy.
"Certainly, certainly," Mendenhall murmured, rubbing his hands with a thought of future custom.
Scratch-tch-ch! The check was made out with a flourish. "Here you are.
I'll come round when I'm ready and tell you where to send the stuff.
By the way, where do you bank? Want to send in checks for collection."
"At the Farmers' and Citizens', mostly. The First National is right around the corner, first turn to your left. Thank you very much, Mr."—he glanced at the check—Britt—Mr. N.C. Britt. I hope for the pleasure of your better acquaintance, Mr. Britt."
"Oh, you will!" laughed Britt. "Nice little town, here. If I like it as well a year from now as I do to-day I'll stick. Time for an old fellow like me to settle down. I've worked hard all my life. But I've got enough. What's the good of more? No dying in the harness for mine. I want to retire, as they call it, and let the young bucks do the work."
"Oh, you're not an old man," protested Mendenhall with reason. "Your amazing vitality—your energetic——" Britt pulled at his luxuriant white hair.
"Oh, good enough for an old has-been!" He laughed with pardonable vanity. "Pretty hearty yet, owing to having lived a clean and wholesome life, thank God; but aging, sir—aging. 'The evil days draw nigh!'" He shook his head with a sober air, which at once gave way to the satisfied smile habitual on his round, contented face. Briskly, he consulted a heavy gold repeater, replacing it with the quick movement of one to whom seconds are valuable. "Well, well! Twelve-thirty! Been here all morning, picking and choosing! Take luncheon with me? No? All right—see you later!" He swung out through the door.
Turning the corner, he crossed the street to the First National, bounced in and presented himself at the teller's window, lighting a cigar, puffing like a tugboat. "To open a small account—two of 'em. Checks for collection," he announced. Tone and manner were breezily self-assertive; the president, from his desk, turned and looked. He indorsed, blotting with a swift dab, and a final fillip through the window. "Chicago, thirty-three hundred—credit to Britt & Stratton. Here's our signature. Denver, eight hundred, to private account H.E. Stratton. He'll be here next week. I'll bring him around and identify. Draw on this by Wednesday? Good! Gimme checkbook. Excuse haste; yours truly!" He popped out.
The president smiled. "An original character, apparently," he said.
"He doesn't aim to let grass grow under his feet."
Between two and three Britt bustled into Mendenhall's, making for the office.
"Oh, I say!" he puffed, as Mendenhall rose. "Banked that check yet?"
"Not yet," replied the other sedately. "It is our custom to send the day's checks for deposit just before three. Nothing wrong, I trust?"
Britt dropped into a chair, mopping his face. "Oh, no, nothing wrong; but I'm afraid I've made a little mistake. I'm not a good business man—not systematic—though I worry along. Like the young wife's bookkeeping—'Received fifty dollars from John—spent it all.' Fact is, I never entirely got over the days when a very short memory was enough to keep track of all my transactions. Always forgetting to fill out my stubs," he explained. "So I don't remember what bank I checked on. But I'm pretty sure 'twas the Commercial, and my balance there is low—not enough to cover your bill, I'm thinking." He leaned back, his portly sides shaking with merriment. "By Jove!" he roared. "It would have been a good joke on me if I hadn't remembered. Nice introduction to a town where I expect to make my home. Oh, well, even so, you had the furniture safe in your warehouse. Guess you wouldn't have been much scared, eh?" He poked Mendenhall playfully with a stubby finger. "Well, let's see about it."
Secretly, the other resented the familiarity, deprecated the boisterous publicity with which the stranger saw fit to do business. Business, with Mendenhall, was a matter for dignified and strictly private conference. With stately precision he took up the neat bundle of checks which he had just indorsed, ran them over, slipped one from under the rubber band, and scanned it with great deliberation. He could not afford to offend a good customer, but he could thus subtly rebuke such hasty and slipshod methods.
"Yes, it is on the Commercial." He held it out inquiringly.
"Thought so!" snorted the other. "Dolt! Imbecile! Ass! I'll apply for a guardian. Fix you out this time!" He whipped out fountain pen and checkbook. "National Trust Company (guess I've got enough there). Pay to J.C. Mendenhall & Co.—how much was that?"
He took the check from the unresisting Mendenhall, spread it out on the desk with a sprawling gesture, tore it to strips with the same impetuous vehemence, and threw it in the waste-basket. After this brief outburst of anger his good humor returned. "Twelve-fifty. Here you are. No mistake this time. Say, old man, that's the drinks on me—come along!"
"Thank you, I never drink," returned Mendenhall primly. He had not relished the roughness with which the other had snatched the check from him, though making allowance for the natural annoyance of one who had been betrayed into a mortifying mistake.
"All the better, all the better. Seldom do myself, but sometimes—Have a cigar? No? Well, I must toddle along!"
It may here be mentioned that during his moment of impulsive vexation Mr. Britt had inconsiderately substituted for the "Commercial" check another, precisely similar save for the important particular that it lacked the Mendenhall indorsement. The original had slipped between the leaves of Britt's check book, under cover of his large hands. Those hands were most expert in various amusing and adroit feats of legerdemain, though Mr. Britt's modesty led him to a becoming, if unusual, reticence in this regard. The substitute, as we have seen, was in the waste-basket.
Just before three Britt ran heavily up the steps of the First National, puffing down the corridor, cocking a hasty eye at the clock as he came.
"Hey, there, sonny! I was almost too late, wasn't I?" was his irreverent greeting to the cashier. "Time to cash this before closing up?" he demanded breathlessly, but with unabated cheerfulness. He flopped the check over. "Mendenhall's indorsement. Hi! Mr. President! Just a minute! I'm a stranger here, but if you'll let us slip in at a side door I'll trot around and fetch Mendenhall. Need this money to-night."
The president took the check from the indignant young cashier, nodded at the familiar signature with the cabalistic peculiarities which attested its authenticity, glanced indulgently at the bobbing white head in window, with difficulty suppressing a smile.
"It will not be necessary, Mr.—Mr. Britt," he said courteously. "Not necessary at all. You have an account here, I believe?"
"It won't be here long," retorted Britt, with garrulous good nature. "Draw it all out next week. Eleven, twelve—and fifty. Thanks to you. There goes the clock. Good day!"
"Quite an odd character, that Mr. Britt?" said the president casually at the club that night. "Boyish old chap."
"Yes, isn't he?" said Mendenhall, folding his paper. "I sold him a pretty stiff bill of goods this morning. Warmish, I take it. He's going to settle here."
"Friend of yours?"
"Oh, no, I never saw him before."
"Why, you indorsed his check for twelve hundred and fifty," said the president, interested, but not alarmed. Doubtless the man had references. Besides, his face was a letter of credit in itself.
"Oh, yes," said Mendenhall unsuspiciously, thinking of the check sent to the Farmers' and Citizens' Bank. The president, thinking of the other, was fully reassured, and was about to pass on. Here the matter might have dropped, and would in most cases. But Mendenhall, a methodical and careful man, wished to vindicate his business prudence by explaining that he had taken no risk in indorsing for a stranger, since he retained possession of the goods.
The rest is too painful.
"I do not rhyme for that dull wight" who does not foresee that New York, Chicago and Denver checks were returned in due course, legibly inscribed with the saddest words of tongue or pen, "No funds." Or that Mr. Britt fully justified his self-given reputation for absence of mind by neglecting to call for his furniture.
Meanwhile, Mr. Britt unostentatiously absented his body as well, taking the trolley for an inland village. At the time of Mendenhall's interview with the president he was speeding southward across country in a livery rig, catching the Lackawanna local for Binghamton about the time the wires were working and he was being searched for on all Lehigh Valley trains.
"Hello, Kirkland!" he said to the night clerk at the Arlington. "Back again, like a bad sixpence! Have my trunk sent up, will you? No—no supper!"
"Letter for you, Mr. Mitchell. Just came," said the clerk respectfully. "So we were expecting you. Haven't seen you for a long time."
Britt-Mitchell thrust the letter in his pocket unopened. "It'll keep till morning. I'm for bed. Good-night, Frank."
He turned in, weary with his exertions to be sure, but with the pleasing consciousness that
…some one done
Has earned a night's repose.
Elmsdale never learned these particulars, however. His genial and expansive smile and the unobtrusive manner of his fading away are there vaguely associated with Cheshire Puss, of joyful memory, whose disappearance, like his, began with the end of the tale.