“I was just shutting up,” began Harkutt, dubiously.
“I won't keep you a minit,” said the intruder, nervously fumbling in the breast pocket of his hickory shirt. “It's a matter of business—Harkutt—I”—But he was obliged to stop here to wipe his face and forehead with the ends of a loose handkerchief tied round his throat. From the action, and what could be seen of his pale, exhausted face, it was evident that the moisture upon it was beads of perspiration, and not the rain which some abnormal heat of his body was converting into vapor from his sodden garments as he stood there.
“I've got a document here,” he began again, producing a roll of paper tremblingly from his pocket, “that I'd like you to glance over, and perhaps you'd”—His voice, which had been feverishly exalted, here broke and rattled with a cough.
Billings, Wingate, and Peters fell apart and looked out of the window. “It's too dark to read anything now, 'Lige,” said Harkutt, with evasive good humor, “and I ain't lightin' up to-night.”
“But I can tell you the substance of it,” said the man, with a faintness that however had all the distinctness of a whisper, “if you'll just step inside a minute. It's a matter of importance and a bargain”—
“I reckon we must be goin',” said Billings to the others, with marked emphasis. “We're keepin' Harkutt from shuttin' up.” “Good-night!” “Good-night!” added Peters and Wingate, ostentatiously following Billings hurriedly through the door. “So long!”
The door closed behind them, leaving Harkutt alone with his importunate intruder. Possibly his resentment at his customers' selfish abandonment of him at this moment developed a vague spirit of opposition to them and mitigated his feeling towards 'Lige. He groped his way to the counter, struck a match, and lit a candle. Its feeble rays faintly illuminated the pale, drawn face of the applicant, set in a tangle of wet, unkempt, party-colored hair. It was not the face of an ordinary drunkard; although tremulous and sensitive from some artificial excitement, there was no ENGORGEMENT or congestion in the features or complexion, albeit they were morbid and unhealthy. The expression was of a suffering that was as much mental as physical, and yet in some vague way appeared unmeaning—and unheroic.
“I want to see you about selling my place on the creek. I want you to take it off my hands for a bargain. I want to get quit of it, at once, for just enough to take me out o' this. I don't want any profit; only money enough to get away.” His utterance, which had a certain kind of cultivation, here grew thick and harsh again, and he looked eagerly at the bottle which stood on the counter.
“Look here, 'Lige,” said Harkutt, not unkindly. “It's too late to do anythin' tonight. You come in to-morrow.” He would have added “when you're sober,” but for a trader's sense of politeness to a possible customer, and probably some doubt of the man's actual condition.
“God knows where or what I may be tomorrow! It would kill me to go back and spend another night as the last, if I don't kill myself on the way to do it.”