The Mystery of the Locks

by E. W. Howe

"Poison has its advantages, for it does not bark when it bites, but it lacks range, and henceforth I carry a gun. How was Uncle Albert to-night?"

Silas placed a plate of cold meat before his friend, and replied that Mr. Ponsonboy would be in a fine rage if he should hear himself referred to as Uncle Albert.

"Oh, would he?" Tug inquired, sighting at his companion precisely as he might have sighted along the barrel of his musket. "That man is fifty years old if he is a day, and don't let him attempt any of his giddy tricks with me. I wouldn't stand it; I know too much about him. I have known Uncle Albert ever since he was old enough to marry, and I know enough to hang him, the old kicker. I've known him to abuse the postmaster for not giving him a letter with money in it, although he didn't expect one, and accuse him of stealing it, and whenever he spells a word wrong, and gets caught at it, he goes around telling that he has found a typographical error in the dictionary. What did he say about me to-night?"

"He said—I hope you won't believe that I think so,"—Davy apologized in advance—"that you robbed the only client you ever had of a thousand dollars."

"Did he, though?" Tug impudently inquired. "Well, I'll give him half if he'll prove it, for I need the money. Uncle Albert hears what is said about me, and I hear what is said about him. If he'll make a date with me, I'll exchange stories with him; and he won't have any of the best of it, either. The people sometimes talk about as good a man as I am, and even were I without faults, there are plenty of liars to invent stories, so you can imagine that they give it to Uncle Albert tolerable lively."

Tug did not mingle with the people a great deal, but he knew about what they were saying, and when talking to Silas he did not hesitate to quote them to substantiate any position he saw fit to take. He had a habit of putting on his hat on these occasions, and inviting Silas to accompany him out in the town to see the principal people, in order that they might own to what Tug had credited them with saying. But Silas always refused to go, not doubting that his friend's inventions were true, so it happened that Tug made out rather strong cases against his enemies.

"I can stand up with the most of them," he said, with an ill humor to which hunger lent a zest; "and them that beat me, I can disgrace with their poor relations. Show me the man that can't be beat if you go at him right, and you may hang me with a thread. Them that are well-behaved have shiftless relations, and I'll get them drunk, and cause them to hurrah for 'Uncle Bill,' or 'Aunt Samantha,' or whoever it may be, in front of their fine houses. I pride myself on my meanness, and I'll not be tromped on. Let him that is without sin cast the first stone, and I'll not be stoned. You can bet on that, if you want to."

Tug proceeded with his meal in silence until Silas said to him that Reverend Wilton was a good man. Silas had a habit of inducing Tug to abuse his enemies by praising them, and the ruse never failed.

"Well, don't he get paid for being good?" Tug replied, waving a kitchen fork in the air like a dagger. "Ain't that his business? It's no more to his credit to say that he is good, than to say that Silas Davy is a hotel Handy Andy. If you say that he knows a good deal about books, I will say, so does Hearty Hampton know a good deal about mending shoes, for it's his trade. Shut Hearty up in a room, and pay him to post himself regarding certain old characters he cares nothing about, and pay him well, and in the course of years he will be able to speak of people, events, and words which you, having been busy all the time, will know nothing about. He ought to be good; it's his business. I always know what a preacher is going to say when he opens his mouth, for don't I know what he's hired to say? I don't like good men, any way, but a man who is paid to be good, and expects me to admire him for it, will find—well, I'll not do it, that's all. How's the old lady?"

There was a faint evidence that Tug was about to laugh at the thought of his divorced wife, and his cheeks puffed out as a preliminary, but he changed his mind at the last moment, and carefully sighted at Silas, as if intending to wing his reply, like a bird from a trap.