"Joe," he said, leaning forward on his elbows till his face, on which the light threw every testy wrinkle into sharp relief, was midway between the two candles at the end of the table, "Joe, I've bought a ship and we're all going to Africa."
For a moment his voice expressed confidence; for a moment his affection for me triumphed over his native sharpness.
"You're all I've got, Joey," he cried, "You're all that's left to the old man, and I'm going to do well by you. Whatever I have is yours, Joey; it's all coming to you, every cent and every dollar. Here,—you must be wanting a bit of money to spend,—here!" He thrust his hand into his pocket and flung half a dozen gold pieces down on the dark, well-oiled mahogany where they rang and rolled and shone dully in the candle-light. "I swear, Joey, I think a lot of you."
I suppose that not five people in all Topham had ever seen Uncle Seth in such a mood. I am sure that, if they had, the town could never have thought of him as only a cold, exacting man. But now a fear apparently overwhelmed him lest by so speaking out through his reticence he had committed some unforgivable offense—lest he had told too much. He seemed suddenly to snap back into his hard, cynical shell. "But of that, no more," he said sharply. "Not a word's to be said, you understand. Not a word—to any one."
When I went back to the store that evening, I sat on the porch in the darkness and thought of Uncle Seth as I had seen him across the table, his face thrust forward between the candles, his elbows planted on the white linen, with the dim, restful walls of the room behind him, with the faces of my father and my mother looking down upon us from the gilt frames on the wall. I knew him too well to ask questions, even though, as I sat on the store porch, he was sitting just behind me inside the open window.
What, I wondered, almost in despair, could we, of all people, do with a ship and a voyage to Africa? Had I not seen Cornelius Gleazen play upon my uncle's fear and vanity and credulity? I had no doubt whatever that the same Neil Gleazen, who had been run out of town thirty years before, was at the bottom of whatever mad voyage my uncle was going to send his ship upon.
Then I thought of good old Abraham Guptil, so soon to be turned out of house and home, and of Arnold Lamont, who saw and knew and understood so much, yet said so little. And again I thought of Cornelius Gleazen; and when I was thinking of him, a strange thing came to pass.
Down in the village a dog barked fiercely, then another nearer the store, then another; then I saw coming up the road a figure that I could not mistake. The man with that tall hat, that flowing coat, that nonchalant air, which even the faint light of the stars revealed, could be no other than Cornelius Gleazen himself.
In the store behind me I heard the low drone of conversation from the men gathered round the stove, the click of a chessman set firmly on the board, the voice of Arnold Lamont—so clear, so precise, and yet so definitely and indescribably foreign—saying, "Check!" Through the small panes of glass I saw my uncle frowning over his ledgers. Now he noted some figure on the foolscap at his right, now he appeared to count on his fingers.
I turned again to watch Cornelius Gleazen. Of course he could not know that anyone was sitting on the porch in the darkness. When he passed the store, he looked over at it with a turn of his head and a twist of his shoulders. His gesture gave me an impression of scorn and triumph so strong that I hardly restrained myself from retorting loudly and angrily. Then I bit my lip and watched him go by and disappear.