“By the time what leaked out?”
“Well, you remember how he started off, that day,” Mortimer began, “to git her to go out buggy-ridin’ in his phaeton with ole General?”
“Yes.”
“Well, sir, you know he was goin’ to drive back here and around the Square to win that bet off o’ Rolfo, and he never come. ’Stead o’ that he turned up at the hardware store about two hours later and settled the bet. Says he lost it because she wasn’t feelin’ too well when he got there, and so they just set around and talked, instead of ridin’. But Bore never went back there, and ain’t goin’ to, you bet, any more than what Henry Ledyard is! There ain’t hardly a man in town but what Maud and Bill’s got buffaloed, Lu.”
Mr. Allen occupied himself with the sharpening of a pencil. “What did they do to Thompson?” he asked casually.
“Well, sir, fer the first few days I expect I was the only man in town knowed what it was.” Mr. Fole spoke with a little natural pride. “You see, after he went up there and wasn’t no sign of him on the Square fer awhile, why I didn’t have nothin’ much to do just then, and thinks I, ‘Why not go see what’s come of him?’ thinks I. So I walked around there the back way, by Copes’s alley, and just as I was turnin’ in one end the alley, by Glory! here come P. Borodino Thompson leadin’ ole General and the phaeton in at the other end, and walkin’ as fur away from him as he could and yet still lead him.
“Well, sir, I almost let out a holler: first thing I thought was they must of been in the worst accident this town had ever saw. Why, pore ole General—honest, he looked more like a slaughter-house than he did like a horse, Lu! ‘What in the name of God is the matter, Bore!’ I says, and you never hear a man take on the way he done.
“Seems Maud and Bill had painted ole General red, and they painted him thick, too, while Bore was in the house fixin’ to take their mother out on this here buggy-ride. And, well, sir, to hear him take on, you’d of thought I was responsible for the whole business! Says it might as well be all over town, now he’d ran into me! Truth is, he talked like he was out of his mind, but I kind o’ soothed him down, and last I fixed it up with him to give me credit fer a little insurance my wife’s been wantin’ to take out on her stepmother, if I’d put General and the phaeton in George Coles’s empty barn, there in the alley, until after dark, and not say nothin’ to George or anybody about it, and then drive him over to Bore’s and unhitch him and wash him off with turpentine that night.
“Well, sir, we got it all fixed up, and I done everything I said I would, but of course you can’t expect a thing like that not to leak out some way or other; so I’m not breakin’ any obligation by tellin’ you about it, because it got all over town several days ago. If I’ve told Bore Thompson once I’ve told him a hunderd times, what’s the use his actin’ the fool about it! ‘What earthly good’s it goin’ to do,’ I says, ‘to go around mad,’ I says, ‘and abusin’ the very ones,’ I says, ‘that done the most to help you out? The boys are bound to have their joke,’ I says to him, ‘and if it hadn’t been you, why, like as not they might of been riggin’ somep’n on Lu Allen or Cal Burns, or even me,’ I says, ‘because they don’t spare nobody! Why, look,’ I says. ‘Ain’t they goin’ after Milo Carter almost as much as they are you and Henry,’ I says, ‘on account of what happened to Milo’s store?’ I says, ‘And look at E. J. Fuller,’ I says. ‘Ain’t the name o’ Gran’-mammy Tipsytoe perty near fastened on him fer good? He don’t go all up and down pickin’ at his best friend,’ I says. ‘E. J. Fuller’s got a little common sense!’ I says. Yes, sir, that’s the way I look at it, Lu.”
Mortimer unhooked his heels, and, stretching himself, elevated his legs until the alternation thus effected in the position of his centre of gravity brought his tilted chair to a level—whereupon he rose, stretched again, sighed, and prepared to conclude the interview.