XI—THE FAILURE OF AN UNCLE-TAMER
FURTHERMORE, in the morning I was just as much at sea. I had gone to sleep as suddenly as if somebody had hit me a tunk on the head; too much fried chicken and hashed brown potato! I did not wake up till Dodo-vah Vose marched through the tavern halls, playing the long roll on his gong. The March sun, level with the eastern windows, quivered with glorious light when I opened my eyes on it. I had all sorts of reasons to be downcast, but I was not when I waked and saw that sun.
Scattered coins, my whole capital, lay on the carpet of braided rags, where they had slipped from my trousers pocket the night before when I hung the garment over a chair. I gazed over the billowing edge of the feather tick in which I was nested, and counted, for the sun lighted the floor and glinted on the coins. One dollar and thirty-seven cents!
However, in spite of that spectacle, I hopped out of bed and dressed, whistling snatches of tupes furnished by music-hall memories. I was home again, Celene Kingsley had given me glances which my hopes translated into all sorts of dear promises—she had asked me to help her; the sun was shining, breakfast was ready! I went down-stairs whistling.
“Head up and tail over the dasher, hey?” was the greeting from Landlord Vose.
“It’s a great world to live in,” I told him. After I had tucked away a slice of home-smoked fried ham only a little smaller than a door-mat, along with eggs and the fixings, I felt even more resolute about fronting what was coming to me.
My spirit of boldness was even a bit hysterical, I guess. I rubbed the nap of my plug-hat smooth with my forearm, pulled on my overcoat, and went out and stood on the tavern porch, inhaling the tingling air of the morning, exhibiting myself to Levant like a gladiator stepping into the arena, announcing by pose and expression: “Here I am. Now come on!”
And the first to answer my challenge was my uncle Deck. I think he had been waiting for me to appear. He walked across the village square, coming from the town office, and I hailed him from afar with a flourish of the hand and a “Good morning!”
Ten feet away he stopped and looked me over. “Why didn’t you come home last night, where you belong, instead of putting up at the tavern and letting me hear about it by word of mouth?”
“Well, Uncle Deck,” I drawled, “you remember—”
“Look here,” he yapped, “as I stand here I don’t know whether to cuff your young chops or shake your hand. A good deal depends on you. If you go to digging up past foolishness I’ll cuff you. As it is”—he stepped forward, hand outstretched—“as it is, son, I’m glad to see you back, and I hear that you have made something of yourself. I’m glad of that, too! Now get your volucus, or whatever your baggage is, and come to the house.”
“I’ll tell you, Uncle Deck,” I explained, dropping his hand after a hearty shake; “I’m here on business this trip, not to go visiting.”
“What difference does that make about coming to my house, where you belong?” he demanded.
He had me there—backed into a corner! He had his pod-auger out, ready to use on me, just as I had apprehended—and so help me! I was not ready with a story.
“What is your business?”
Dignified reserve and a plug-hat would not serve to trig my uncle Deck!
It was necessary for me to dedare then and there what my business in Levant was. I had been clutching wildly into a lot of nebulous thoughts ever since waking, trying to get hold of something solid.
And I found out then, as I had experienced before, and discovered on many occasions later, that there was in me something which enabled me to leap an emergency barrier when the goad was sharp enough and the danger near.
“I’ve got to have dealings with a lot of men and I’d be a nuisance around your premises, Uncle Deck.”
“What dealings? No secret, is it?”
“Certainly not! I’m buying for a big syndicate. Buying standing timber.” I said that because I had already committed myself with Celene Kingsley and it came to me that I’d better have one story and stick to it.
“All right! Buy some of mine.”
“But as I remember it, it’s mostly black growth—pine and spruce.”
“Yes, and cedar, fir, and hemlock! What in thunder does anybody want of any other kind of timber?”
“I can’t use it. I’m buying for a special purpose.”
I felt like a man trying to get across a brook without wetting his feet. Every time I leaped I was mighty glad and rather surprised to find another stepping-stone to land on.
“Then you must be looking for hardwood?”
“That’s it.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Burn bricks for our factory chimneys.”
He did not look more than half convinced.
“I can’t go into details even with you, Uncle Deck,” I told him. “I’m ordered to buy close, and when names of big concerns are given out the sellers always raise prices.”
“There’s only one big stand of hardwood in this town,” he said, “and I’ll see you in damnation before I’ll let you buy that!”
“Why?”
The red patches beside his nose began to flame. “Don’t come back at me with your ‘whys’! I’ll tell you why you can’t buy! It’s because you’ll be handing over money to that”—(I never heard coarser oaths; my uncle fairly choked on them)—“to Zebulon Kingsley.”
“I know the lot belongs to Judge Kingsley. I saw the sign on the fence and I happened to meet the judge right there and had some talk with him.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you have been dickering with that—”
I broke in on his list of names. “My concern has ordered me to buy hardwood and I’m buying. I have no quarrel with Judge Kingsley.”
“By the Great Jedux, you have! Don’t you dare to tell me you have forgotten! You have got a quarrel with him. D——n you, look out that you don’t start one with me!”
“I have come in here to mind my own business—”
“Condemn your ha’slet!” he cried. “No wonder you didn’t dare to come to my house last night! No wonder you’re fighting shy of me to-day!”
In spite of his anger, I felt a sudden sense of relief. I did not need to waste effort and time on minor falsehoods, trying to explain why I did not come to his house; I could devote all my attention to my main lie.
“I’m not fighting shy of you, Uncle Deck. I’m a business man, and—”
He turned sideways to me and switched his arm furiously, as if he held a goad and was trying to start a balky steer.
“You come along over to my office,” he commanded with a grate in his tones. “This isn’t a matter to blart about on a street corner.”
I followed him. He locked the door behind us.
“You know that I have been elected first selectman of this town?”
“Yes, Uncle Deck. I’m glad the citizens—”
“Yah, for the citizens! First and last, it has cost me five thousand dollars to get this office. And it’s for their own good I worked to get it—and they thought it was only to satisfy my grudge. That’s all the credit a man gets from the fools who vote. But I’m in this office now—I’m headed straight for my mark—and the man who gets in my way will be bored like a cheese target! Do you hear that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They know enough in this town to keep out of my way! I have trained ’em. You don’t dare to come back here, do you—my own nephew—and get in my way?”
“I’m only attending to my business.”
“Meaning by that you’re thinking of buying a wood-lot from Zebulon Kingsley?”
Secretly I was sort of laughing at myself. Here I was, inviting a lot of trouble by insisting on doing something which was a positive impossibility, so it seemed then as I jingled my coins in my pocket.
“I have my business the same as you have yours, sir. I didn’t know—”
“You did know!” he shouted. “And if you are such a renegade as to forget what has been done to your family by that skunk, you know now—for I’m telling you! You can’t do business with Zebulon Kingsley. I say it!” He pounded his fist on his breast.
I kept still. I was trying to work out in my mind some sensible idea as to what I really did intend to do in the matter of that wood-lot.
My uncle leaned toward me over the table in the town office, propping himself on one fist and pounding softly and slowly with the other. His lips were rolled back and he growled his words deep down in his throat, almost in a whisper.
“I know what he is, now. I’ve got the stuff on him. I’ve had to work slow. I’ve had to convince two devilish steers on the board of selectmen without telling ’em what I’m after. But I’ve got ’em. And he is headed for hell and I’m after him. And he knows it now and that’s the best of it! Because I’m taking my time while he is thinking it over! Oh, my gad! if only your father could have lived till now to see how the devilish old gouger and robber is getting his! And he is paying for your mother’s tears and sweat with drops of his blood. And he is paying me, too. I stay up nights to see that lamp in his office window. And you say, do you, that you have come here to hand over money to Zebulon Kingsley? To the man who filed your father’s heart in two with a mortgage?”
“It’s only in the way of ordinary trade,” I ventured. I was wondering why I was continuing to provoke my uncle. But I knew I needed to start considerable of a smoke to screen my real condition from him.
“There is to be no trade between you,” raged my uncle. “No money from you shall touch that scoundrel’s hands!” Just at that moment I was more sure of that than he was.
My uncle gave me a little opportunity to do some thinking, for he went to the office safe and pulled out a bottle and drank.
I wondered what kind of a hold he had on Judge Kingsley. My curiosity was aflame. It was not believable that he could ruin the judge financially, for the Kingsleys had possessed wealth for many generations. Celene Kingsley, as the petted daughter of our village aristocrat, was too far above me for any hopes to bear fruit, even though they budded. But what would the Kingsleys be after my uncle had worked out his revenge, of whose success he seemed to be so sure?
“I know there has been trouble between the families, Uncle Deck,” I said. “I know we were not used right in money matters. But what is it you’re going to do to Judge Kingsley? What is your grip on him?”
He wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand and set back the bottle. “None of your d———d business!”
“I don’t like to go into anything blindfolded. I have business to consider, and I’ll have to make explanations.
“You’ll get off better by making ’em to the men who have hired you than by explaining to me, if you don’t do what I tell you to do.”
“But I’m no kid any longer. I’m running my own affairs, sir. If you can’t let me in on the plans of this thing—”
He advanced on me, waggling his fist. “You’re a devil of a fellow to come and pump me for secrets, you are! What do you want to do—run to him again like you did in the case of that hoss trade? Do you think I have forgotten that?”
“No, and I know you never will, sir.”
“And so I say now, ask no questions and do as I tell you.”
I edged toward the door, for I was pretty well mixed up in my own thoughts and did not care to get into any more of a row with my uncle—and all needlessly.
“Are you giving me your word?” he demanded.
“I’m not promising anything until I can think it over and decide on what’s best to be done, Uncle Deck.”
“You’ll decide now before you leave this office.”
He started toward me, but the key was in the door, and I turned it and stood ready to leave.
“You have come back here to fight me, have you? A Sidney fighting his own and nearest blood kin, eh?” He came close and made threatening gestures. I put my arm across his breast and slowly pushed him back; I gave him good opportunity to note that the arm was a sizable one and mighty hard.
“You plug-hatted dude!” he frothed. “Forgetting the duty you owe to your own because you have had a whirl in the city!”
“I am no dude, Uncle Deck, and calling me names and treating me like a brat, as you used to do, isn’t going to get you anything!”
“You are not standing with your own family.”
“I can be loyal to my family, but I’m not going to-shut my eyes and jump into a row just because you tell me it’s your row.”
I saw that I had produced an impression and he calmed down a bit.
“There may be a good deal you can do to help me in the thing,” he said. “But, blast it! after what you once did to me, I ain’t sure I can trust you!” He squinted his eyes and sized me up shrewdly. “You’re a Sidney, and the old rat did dirt to you before you left this town. If you ain’t willing to rise up now and swoop on him, there’s a reason. You ain’t stuck on that girl of his, are you?”
The blood surged into my face. I couldn’t help it. I was thinking hard about her all through that talk. That was the last thing I would have looked for from my uncle. He had jumped me in fine shape, and he saw it.
“Yah-h-h!” he snarled. “You fool! You devilish fool! It had to be a girl to keep you from doing your plain duty—and I knew it. Nothing but a girl would be putting a twist-bit into your mouth right now!”
“You’re wrong! You’re all wrong!” I protested, but I didn’t sound real convincing.
Nor did he, either, when he started to give me hints about her. His eyes shifted and he stammered. I took him by the arm with a good, hearty clutch and he shut up.
There did not seem to be anything more to say just then, on the part of either of us; plainly, we had squared off at each other!
So I walked out.
I was glad because my first session with my uncle was over. But while I felt relief I knew I had pretty well done for myself where he was concerned. Of course, I had not intended to confess to him my financial condition, but deep down I had felt until then that if worse came to the worst he would see me out of a hole. He would have done something, at least, for my father’s sake. But I had been the one to deal family loyalty the first kick. Now my uncle would see me starve and enjoy my sufferings; his grudges followed just such grooves.
Whatever else was ahead, it was pretty much up to me!
I went back to the tavern, for it was some comfort just to look on Dodovah Vose’s kindly face.
“Let’s see! You’ve been dropping a word or two about doing business here,” he prodded in friendly fashion. “Hope so. It’s quiet in town. We’re all climbing ‘March Hill,’ you know—dull time in the country.”
“I’m here to start something, sir.” I was telling him the truth then. I had just started something over in the town office. I sat down and picked up a newspaper from the table and began to show great interest in reading so that I would not be obliged to talk. I was afraid he would get me cornered. I hung onto that paper as if it were a life-buoy—I read it from title to last line, advertisements and all. It was the Mechanicsville Herald, printed in a manufacturing city about thirty miles from Levant, and because I did not miss anything which was printed in it I noted that two concerns wanted cord-wood—and I had just mentioned the matter of cord-wood to my uncle. At all events, I was traveling on a singletrack lie in old Levant!
I laid down that paper and did some mighty lively thinking. Then, to reassure myself, I gave my silk hat the least bit of a cock and marched to Judge Kingsley’s mansion.
Celene herself opened the door so promptly after my ring that I had a cozy little suspicion that she had seen me coming and had hurried to meet me. She was very pretty in her morning gown.
“Oh, your ankle is so much better, isn’t it?” she cried. “I watched you coming across the square.”
She stepped back, inviting me to enter by her manner, and I walked in.
“I knew just what to do for it. It’s pretty nigh all right.”
She led me to the sitting-room, and her mother rose and met me; Mrs. Kingsley was distantly polite, that was all. I was glad even for that much in the case of a Sidney, for I knew that Judge Kingsley’s obedient wife was as careful in matching her opinions to his as she was in matching colors at the store.
“I ask to be excused for calling so early in the day,” I said, with my hat in the hook of my arm, and putting on my best manners. “But this is a business call and I’m in somewhat of a hurry. You heard me speak to your father, Miss Kingsley, about the wood-lot. Now—”
“I never presume to interfere in my husband’s business matters,” said Mrs. Kingsley, looking half scared. “I know nothing whatever about his business.”
“Oh, I am not asking you to do so—certainly not,” I hurried to tell her. “I shall do all my business directly with him. But to do so I need his address in the city. I have come to ask you for it. I suppose he left it.”
“Oh yes—so that I may send his mail.” She looked relieved and gave me the name of a hotel.
I had not presumed to sit down, though I was sure that Celene’s eyes had asked me. I bowed and backed toward the door.
“I thank you. That’s all I wanted. I am sorry I was obliged to intrude.” I felt that I was certainly doing that little thing well. “I may be obliged to call again, if you will allow me.”
Mrs. Kingsley hesitated.
“Of course you may call,” blurted Celene.
“I may have to consult with you in a matter similar to this errand to-day,” I explained. “I’m sorry the judge is not here; in that case I would not be bothering you.”
“I tried to prevail on my husband to stay at home—he is not at all well—there are so many matters which need his attention here,” complained Mrs. Kingsley. “If we can help you with any information we’ll be glad to doit.”
I went away on that, and I guess I left a good impression that I was strictly business!
Feeling sure that the two of them were watching me, I put a lot of business snap into my gait when I returned to the tavern.
“Mr. Vose,” I asked, briskly, “how many hitches have you in your livery-stable?”
“Eight,” he said, “if I include two road-carts.”
“The road-carts are all right, too. I want to use all of ’em, if you can furnish drivers.”
“It’s easy enough to find men in these slack times.”
“And probably farmers and day’s-work men in the back districts of the town would like a job.”
“You can bet on it!”
“Start eight men going, then, as soon as you can get the horses hitched in. Have the messengers pass the word that I can use two hundred husky men. Each man to report here in the tavern yard to-morrow morning at six-thirty with a sharp ax on his shoulder.”
“And what else—tell ’em what else?”
“Nothing.”
“But about wages—and what they’re to do?”
“Tell ’em nothing. They’ll come running in here to find out what it’s all about, Mr. Vose. Don’t even tell ’em who wants ’em. You and I both know how curiosity itches in this town till it has been properly scratched.”
“Guess you’re right,” agreed the landlord. “If you set out to hire ’em regular style they’d want to hem and haw and haggle about so long and so much!”
“If you want a deposit for—” I suggested, reaching toward a breast pocket which was empty.
“Godfrey domino, no!” he protested, flapping his hands. “If you have had to handle business in those suspicious ways down in the city I’m sorry for you. Now forget money talk between us till it’s time to talk.”
I was glad to do that, and I hoped that his ideas of time were liberal.
I borrowed some blank paper and went up to my room and figured for many hours, stopping only to eat a good dinner—a boiled dinner in Vose’s best style. My plate was piled high twice with corned beef fringed with golden fat, succulent disks of yellow carrots, wine-red beets, snowy white spuds, and odorous turnips. No man could possibly be a pessimist with that dinner under his belt! I had every reason to be the most apprehensive man in Avon County, but I had set my face to the front and I had just naturally made up my mind that I was going to pay for that dinner and for the other things which I had been recklessly ordering. I proposed to put myself into a position where I would be compelled to use every bit of my capital of cheek. The sweat stood, out on my forehead, but it wasn’t the kind of moisture which could soften my grit.
In the afternoon, every time a steaming horse came homing back to Vose’s stable, I felt a funny quiver inside me.
“I reckon you have got a good line on human nature, young Sidney,” stated the landlord, when I went down to the foreroom before supper. “From what the men say this rushing around back district’s with teams has got the boys all heifered up. Even if they don’t come in to go to work, they’ll be here to see what in tunket the hoorah’s about.”
“I have heard my father say that this town was always ready to turn out to a bee,” I told him. When I said it another thought came to cheer me—I had noticed that when a lot of men were set at work together on one job the natural spirit of rivalry put pep into the bunch.
When Dodovah Vose went to his kitchen to give an eye to supper, I plucked a telegraph blank from his office desk. I nerved myself to try on my most audacious trick of all. I wrote this:
To Ross Sidney, Levant.—Offer accepted. Go ahead with work. Will settle with you on my return.
Z. Kingsley.
I set my jaws and told myself that the message wasn’t all falsehood; the last sentence was strictly true, even if Zebulon Kingsley did not pen it.
I folded the paper, stuck it in my pocket, and went again to the Kingsley house. It was brazen business—a dangerous hazard. But I was depending on woman’s inadequacy. I felt that I had the two of them sized pretty well. They had never presumed to meddle in the affairs of their master. They would not dare to question his will. I figured that sending him a wire asking corroboration of the message to me would seem to them like bold interference which would bring reproof from him.
I waited, respectfully standing, while they read the message, Celene looking over her mother’s shoulder.
“It’s more about the wood-lot matter,” I explained. “I think you heard your father make me a price on it. Miss Kingsley.”
“I remember distinctly, mother. Father said he would sell for two thousand dollars.”
“I know it must seem rather irregular,” I said, “but in my wire I explained that my people are in a great hurry—and I’m glad that he has been willing to meet me half-way. It means that I am to put on a crew at once and cut the wood—and, of course, it’s a safe proposition for the judge,” I went on, forcing the best smile I could. “Neither the land nor the wood can be carried away in a shawl-strap before he returns—I think he said in a week or ten days!”
They returned my smile, and for the first time Mrs. Kingsley seemed rather cordial.
“I’m glad you are taking it off his hands,” she declared. “It will be one less thing for him to worry about. He has been so troubled by his business. I’m sure that he’ll be glad to get rid of a lot more property in the same way.”
My soul whispered its doubts!
“I hope that the matter is all clear now and that you have a good understanding, Mrs. Kingsley. You will explain, will you, if anybody comes to you in regard to the matter or questions my authority?”
“I will, Mr. Sidney.”
She exchanged glances with her daughter and they seemed to understand each other quickly. While we had been talking I heard the subdued clatter of supper preparations in another room.
“I feel sure that if my husband were here,” said Mrs. Kingsley, “he would extend the hospitality of our house to a gentleman who was obliging him in a business matter. Won’t you stay and take supper with us, Mr. Sidney?”
Without replying, I gave my hat into the ready hands of Celene and sat down weakly.
I was tickled nigh foolish—I’ll admit that. But I was not wholly taken in by that hospitality play. Mrs. Zebulon Kingsley had known too much about me and my breed-to feel any great hankering to have me as a guest. But I was willing to bet a big plum that she was thinking a lot about my uncle’s hostility and about the judge’s fear of that rambunctious town official. And I was also sure that certain matters had been talked over between her and Celene since my arrival in town with such outward emblems of importance and prosperity. Furthermore, had I not fairly promised the daughter that I would do my best in the line of uncle-busting?
So I held on to my emotions as best I could and waited for the subject to come up. It did, of course. I had not been in the house ten minutes before Mrs. Kingsley burst out. She was full of that topic. She saw in my uncle’s attitude nothing but a wanton desire to make trouble for a good and great man.
I had been thinking over the matter of that hostility since my morning’s talk with Uncle Deck. I had been developing a sharp-ended suspicion that my uncle had something up his sleeve with which to arm that hostility. Judge Kingsley would never have pulled his wife into a row he was having with Decker Sidney unless desperation had moved him. I was bitterly ashamed and grieved when I listened to her description of that unutterable interview.
As for her, she had no suspicions as to her husband’s integrity—I could see that! The picture she made of the affair was of a mad dog chasing a saint!
“But what does the man think he can do to my husband? He can do nothing. He must realize it. What has he said to you, Mr. Sidney? I ask you, for I am sure you do not approve, his actions.”
I looked at Celene, and answered that I certainly did not approve, nor had I ever approved many things my uncle did.
“I will say further that I did what I could to-day to turn him from his grudge.”
“But what does he think he can do to my husband?” she insisted. “I suppose he told you.”
“No, he did not, madam. He said he did not trust me. He twitted me with having betrayed him once before to the judge—about the doctored horse,” I added, with a sickly grin.
“But, of course, you—his own nephew—you produced some effect on him?”
“Yes, I made him so mad he would have struck me if he had dared. That’s all the effect I seemed to produce.”
Tears came into her eyes. “How will it end?” she quavered.
I did not feel like bragging just then about any powers of mine in the matter; I had plenty on my mind and conscience as it was. I was distinctly aware of being glad I had had that boiled dinner, and plenty of it, and I say that much with all due respect for the blessed presence of Celene at the supper-board. For between my ever-swelling love for her, my self-consciousness at table, my shame on account of my uncle, and my general emotions, anyway, I could scarcely choke down a mouthful. And at the end I was wholly and fairly rattled—that expression seems to fit my state of mind better than anything I can think of right now.
She accompanied me to the door that evening when I departed—Mrs. Kingsley allowed her to go alone, evidently having elevated me to the plane of, at least, a buttonhole friend of the family after hearing of my quarrel with my uncle.
And being rattled, and seeing the grieved anxiety in her eyes, and knowing how much distress must be tearing at her poor heart, I gulped out that I would put my uncle where he belonged. I was saying to myself that I would see him in tophet before I’d allow his persecution to harm those innocent women, and I came nigh saying that to her in my excitement.
She put out to me both of her hands, and I took them. I tossed all prudence over the rail then.
“If there’s got to be a fight in the Sidney family, then there’ll be one! You tell your mother to sleep easy. I’ll take this thing in hand from now on and I won’t have your father abused by anybody.”
I was talking as big as old Lord Argyle, and I knew I was babbling like a fool—bu t what can’t a girl’s wet eyes do to a fellow’s common, sense?
“We trust you,” she said. “You have made me so happy!”
I bent down and kissed her dear hands, first one and then the other. When I straightened up and saw the flush on her cheeks and the shy pleasure in her eyes I went the limit without stopping to take thought. I put my arms around her and kissed her on the lips—and no honest man can look me squarely in the eye and tell me there’s any memory like the remembrance of the first kiss from one’s own true love! For the first true love is not merely maiden—she has elements of the goddess in her!
Therefore, having presumed so much with a goddess, I was immediately frightened and found myself ready to struggle with apology—and apology did not fit that occasion. So I ran away before I made more of a fool of myself.
“Good night!” I whispered from the gate. “I love you!”
She closed the big door very softly and I gathered good omen from that.
How bright the stars were when I looked at them through my tears! A half-century ago a Yankee poet wrote these verses when he was in love:=
````When twilight’s sable curtain falls,
`````Then stars stand thick at even ````To act as outside sentinels `````Around the gates of heaven.
````That night along the shimmering slant,
`````(I tell you true, my brother)
````The password was “Almira Grant”
`````They whispered to each other.=
I knew mighty well what was their password that March night when I walked away from Celene.
I was not fit for any tavern society just then. Impulse seized upon me and I went down into the orchard. True love does not forget his trails and his caches! I found the tree with the hollow trunk and slipped my hand into the hole; I pulled forth the little packet of three rings. I reckoned that when I got my courage and my voice I would have a story to tell her—some evidence of love longstanding to offer—and that I’d find those rings pretty valuable as exhibits A, B, and C.
There were quite a number of gossiping loafers in the tavern foreroom when I marched in at last and took my room key from its hook.
If there had been any doubt among them as to my importance in the world, that doubt must have vanished when they looked on me that night; for if I did not feel at that moment that the world was mine, nobody ever did!