CHAPTER IX
DEPUTY JENNEY was a big man. In his stocking feet he stood a fraction more than six feet and two inches, but he possessed more breadth than even that height entitled him to. He was so broad that, if you saw him alone, with no ordinary individual beside him for comparison, he gave the impression of being short and squat. His weight was nearer three hundred than two hundred pounds. He was not fat.
Most big men are hard to provoke. It is rarely you find a giant who uses his size as a constant threat. Such men are tolerant of their smaller fellows, slow to anger, not given to bullying and meanness. Deputy Jenney was a mean big man. He was a blusterer, and it was a joy to him to use his fists. You never knew where you stood with Deputy Jenney, nor what unpleasant turn his peculiar mind might give to conversation or circumstance. He was easily affronted, not overly intelligent, and in his mind was room for no more than a single idea at a time. He was vain of his size and strength, and his chief delight was in exhibiting it, preferably in battle. So much for Deputy Jenney’s outstanding characteristic.
As he left Abner Fownes’s office his humor was unpleasant. It was unpleasant for two reasons, first and foremost because he was afraid of Abner, and it enraged him to be made afraid of anybody. Second, he had been held up to ridicule in the Free Press and he could not endure ridicule. So the deputy required a victim, and Evan Bartholomew Pell seemed to have selected himself for the rôle. If Jenney comprehended the desires of Abner Fownes—and he fancied he did in this case—he had been directed to do what he could to induce Evan to absent himself permanently from Gibeon.
He walked down the street fanning himself into a rage—which was no difficult matter. His rages were very much like the teams which draw fire engines—always ready for business; trained to leap from their stalls and to stand under the suspended harness.... It was the noon hour, and as he arrived at the door of the Free Press office it was Evan Pell’s unpleasant fortune to be coming out to luncheon. Deputy Jenney roared at him.
“Hey, you!” he bellowed.
Evan paused and peered up at the big man through his round spectacles, a calm, self-sufficient, unemotional little figure of a man. The word little is used in comparison to Deputy Jenney, for the professor was not undersized.
“Were you speaking to me?” he asked.
“You’re the skunk that wrote that piece about me,” shouted Deputy Jenney.
“I certainly wrote an article in which you were mentioned,” said Evan, who, apparently, had not the least idea he stood in imminent danger of destruction.