“Then,” said he, “suppose we give over this discussion of myself and commence working.”
How Carmel might have responded to this impact must remain a matter for debate, because she had not quite rallied to the attack when the arrival of a third person made continuance impossible. There are people who just come; others who arrive. The first class make no event of it whatever; there is a moment when they are not present and an adjoining moment when they are—and that is all there is to it. The newcomer was an arrival. His manner was that of an arrival and resembled somewhat the docking of an ocean liner. Carmel could imagine little tugs snorting and coughing and churning about him as he warped into position before the railing. It seemed neither right nor possible that he achieved the maneuver under his own power alone. His face, as Carmel mentally decapitated him, and scrutinized that portion of his anatomy separately from the whole, gave no impression of any sort of power whatever. It was a huge putty-mask of placid vanity. There was a great deal of head, bald and brightly glistening; there was an enormous expanse of face in which the eyes and nose seemed to have been crowded in upon themselves by aggressive flesh; there were chins, which seemed not so much physical part of the face as some strange festoons hung under the chin proper as barbaric adornments. On the whole, Carmel thought, it was the most face she had ever seen on one human being.
She replaced his head and considered him as a whole. It is difficult to conceive of the word dapper as applying to a mastodon, but here it applied perfectly. His body began at his ears, the neck having long since retired from view in discouragement. He ended in tiny feet dressed in patent-leather ties. Between ears and toes was merely expanse, immensity, a bubble of human flesh. One thought of a pan of bread dough which had been the recipient of too much yeast.... The only dimension in which he was lacking was height, which was just, for even prodigal nature cannot bestow everything.
He peered at Carmel, then at Evan Bartholomew Pell, with an unwinking baby stare, and then spoke suddenly, yet carefully, as if he were afraid his voice might somehow start an avalanche of his flesh.
“I am Abner Fownes,” he said in a soft, effeminate voice.
“I am Carmel Lee,” she answered.
“Yes.... Yes.... I took that for granted—for granted. I have come to see you—here I am. Mountain come to Mohammed—eh?...” He paused to chuckle. “Very uppity young woman. Wouldn’t come when I sent for you—so had to come to you. What’s he doing here?” he asked, pointing a sudden, pudgy finger at Evan Pell.
“Mr. Pell is working for the paper.”
“Writing more letters?” He did not pause for an answer. “Mistake, grave mistake—printing letters like that. Quiet, friendly town—Gibeon. Everybody friends here.... Stir up trouble. It hurt me.”
Carmel saw no reason to reply.