“Why, dod—why, blame take—” Saint Harvey would begin furiously, only to remember himself in time, and force himself to calmness. “You go 'way from here! I don't want to talk to you! I don't want to sell! I don't want to lease—”
“But, please, Misder Redink—”
The meekly appealing eyes of his late rival made Harvey furious, inwardly. He longed to be able to cast aside all restraint and to dod-baste Moses Shuder with all his heart and all his soul. Moses Shuder was worse than a hair shirt or peas in his shoes.
It was the meekness of Shuder, coming back so cringingly, day after day, that drove Saint Harvey to the edge of terrible outbursts of unsaintly temper. And Moses Shuder's eyes, which were like the meekly appealing eyes of Saint Harvey's stray dogs, reminded him of them.
For the stray dogs were another thorn in the good saint's flesh. He was having a sad time being a Little Brother to Stray Dogs. Stray dogs did not like him. They hated him. Whenever they saw him, they looked up at him with meekly appealing eyes like Moses Shuder's and then bit him on the leg.
Perhaps this was because before Saint Harvey became a saint he had hated stray dogs and thrown things at them, and the dogs recognized him as an ancient dog-hater. However that may be, they now greeted him, when he approached them, with a look that pleaded not to be given a beating, and then, as he approached, showed their fangs, growled and raised the hair along their spines, and jumped at his legs. He wished he had been advertised as a Little Brother to Stray Rabbits instead of to dogs.
Saint Harvey missed his smoking tobacco, too. He missed it tremendously, and temptation was always being forced upon him. You know how Americans are. We are not well used to saints and hermits, and when we have one we are proud of him and grateful to him, and we try to show that we are. We go to him and offer him a good cigar. People who would never have thought of offering Harvey Redding even a two-for-five cigar went out of their way to buy ten-cent cigars to offer to Saint Harvey of Riverbank. Sometimes they offered him two two-for-twenty-five cigars at one offering! And when he refused they seated themselves beside him and lighted one of the cigars and let the delicious aroma of the burning leaf float across his nostrils. Great Scott! Have you ever stopped smoking and had one of these fellows come around and let the delicious aroma of a really good cigar float across your nostrils?
I have seen pictures of Saint Anthony being tempted, and I will admit he was subjected to some considerable temptations, and withstood them, but he had never been a tobacco smoker. If he had been, and had given it up, and had then been tempted as Saint Harvey was tempted, he would have stood firm, I have no doubt, but he would have been quite considerably irritated. Giving up tobacco after long using it has that effect on the nerves. It had that effect on Saint Harvey's nerves.
Along about that time Saint Harvey of Riverbank was the most easily irritated saint that ever lived, bar none.