“We drove like blazes,” said the deputy, “but I didn't get heated much. Colder than th' dickens. H'ar you, Mrs. Potter? George robbin' you again?”
Mr. Briggles was climbing from the carriage slowly. He was bundled in a heavy ulster with a wide collar that turned up over his ears. He wore ear-mufflers, and a scarf was tied over his cap and under his chin. On his hands were thick, fur-lined mittens, and his trouser legs were buckled into high arctics. Over his nose and across one cheek a strip of adhesive plaster showed where Booge had “hit the old kazoozer and scratched him on the nose,” as he had sung.
Mr. Briggles was not in a good temper. Under his arrangement with his society this had been an unprofitable week, for he had not “rescued” a single child (at twenty dollars per child). He slowly untied his scarf, removed his ear-tabs and unbuttoned his ulster. He affected ministerial garb under his outer roughness; it had a good effect on certain old ladies as he sat in their parlors coaxing money from them (forty per cent, commission on all collected), and his face had what George Rapp called “that solemncholy sneaker” look. You expected him to put his finger-tips together and look at the ceiling. There are but few Briggleses left to prey on the gullibly charitable to-day, and thank God for that. Their day is over. Most of them are in stock-selling games now.
“We were on sheriff's business to-day, Brother Rapp,” said Briggles, when he had opened his coat. “You can charge the rig to the county.”
“How about that, Joe?” Rapp asked the deputy.
“What's the diff.?” asked Joe carelessly. “The county can stand it.”
He had entered the office, where Rapp always kept his barrel-stove red hot, and was kicking his toes against the foot-rail of the stove.
“Want the team again to-morrow?” asked Rapp.
“I want it to-morrow,” said Joe. “I got to go to Sweetland to put an attachment on to a feller's hogs. I don't know what your friend Briggles wants.”
“I want you to help me find this boy, Brother—” Briggles began, but the deputy merely turned his back to the stove and looked at him over one shoulder.