This Gedney was a slovenly and mumbling old man, the leading characteristics of whose appearance were an unshaven jaw, a general shininess and disorder of apparel, and a great deal of tobacco-juice. It was still remembered that in his youth he had promised to be an important figure at the bar and in politics. His failure had been exceptionally obvious and complete, but for some occult reason Thessaly had a soft corner in its heart for him, even when his estate bordered upon the disreputable, and for many years had been in the habit of electing him to be one of its justices of the peace. The functions of this office he avowedly employed in the manner best calculated to insure the livelihood which his fellow-citizens expected him to get out of it. His principal judicial maxim was never to find a verdict against the party to a suit who was least liable to pay him his costs. If justice could be made to fit with this rule, so much the better for justice. But, in any event, the ’squire must look out primarily for his costs. He made no concealment of this theory and practice; and while some citizens who took matters seriously were indignant about it, the great majority merely laughed and said the old man had got to live somehow, and voted good-naturedly for him next time.
If Calvin Gedney owed much to the amiability and friendly feeling of his fellow-townsmen, he repaid the debt but poorly in kind. No bitterer or more caustic tongue than his wagged in all Dearborn County. When he was in a companiable mood, and stood around in the cigar store and talked for the delectation of the boys of an evening, the range and scope of his personal sneers and sarcasms would expand under the influence of applauding laughter, until no name, be it never so honored, was sacred from his attack, save always one—that of Minster. There was a popular understanding that Stephen Minster had once befriended Gedney, and that that accounted for the exception; but this was rendered difficult of credence by the fact that so many other men had befriended Gedney, and yet now served as targets for his most rancorous jeers. Whatever the reason may have been, however, the ’squire’s affection for the memory of Stephen Minster, and his almost defiant reverence for the family he had left behind, were known to all men, and regarded as creditable to him.
Perhaps this was in some way accountable for the fact that the ’squire remained year after year in old Mr. Clarke’s will as an executor, long after he had ceased to be regarded as a responsible person by the village at large, for Mr. Clarke also was devoted to the Minsters. At all events, he was so named in the will, in conjunction with a non-legal brother of the deceased, and it was in this capacity that he addressed some remarks to Mr. Horace Boyce when he handed over to him the Minster papers. The scene was a small and extremely dirty chamber off the justice’s court-room, furnished mainly by a squalid sofa-bed, a number of empty bottles on the bare floor, and a thick overhanging canopy of cobwebs.
“Here they are,” said the ’squire, expectorating indefinitely among the bottles, “and God help ’em! What it all means beats me.”
“I guess you needn’t worry, Cal,” answered Horace lightly, in the easily familiar tone which Thessaly always adopted toward its unrespected magistrate. “You’d better come out and have a drink; then you’ll see things brighter.”
“Damn your impudence, you young cub!” shouted the ’squire, flaming up into sudden and inexplicable wrath. “Who are you calling ‘Cal’? By the Eternal, when I was your age, I’d have as soon bitten off my tongue as dared call a man of my years by his Christian name! I can remember your great-grandfather, the judge, sir. I was admitted before he died; and I tell you, sir, that if it had been possible for me to venture upon such a piece of cheek with him, he’d have taken me over his knee, by Gawd! and walloped me before the whole assembled bar of Dearborn County!”
The old man had worked himself up into a feverish reminiscence of his early stump-speaking days, and he trembled and spluttered over his concluding words with unwonted excitement.
Horace felt disposed to laugh. People always did laugh at “Cal” Gedney, and laugh most when he grew strenuous.
“You’d better get the drink first,” he said, putting the box under his arm, “and then free your mind.”
“I’ll see you food for worms, first!” shouted the ’squire, still furiously. “You’ve got your papers, and I’ve got my opinion, and that’s all there is ’twixt you and me. There’s the door that the carpenters made, and I guess they were thinking of you when they made it.”