“Why don’t you wear that wad o’ money hung round your neck out in plain sight?” demanded Uncle Lysimachus, angrily. “You seem bound and determined to have it under our noses all the whol’ time.”
“Put up your stuff,” cried Hiram. “Make a pool if ye want to. I ain’t afraid of the gang of you.”
He whirled and ran his hale eye along their faces. Dow Babb, who had been chief of the Palermo hand-tub brigade for many years, unhooked his toe from his instep, recrossed his legs and said with decision:
“You can’t run the whole of this town, Hime, even if you are runnin’ a part of it jest now. You wait your turn with your brass band. I’ve been before town meetin’ for four years, now, a-askin’ and implorin’ the voters to appropriate enough to repair Hecla and buy some more hose. They ain’t give me a cent. Now if you go to work and bull through any such article in the warrant as you’re braggin’ you will, then all I’ve got to say is that the next time a fire breaks out in the village, your darned old band can go and play on it. The Hecla comp’ny never will.” Uncle Buck, unable to control himself any longer, got up and pounded his cane on the floor.
“I’ve heard all the tow-rowin’ I want to hear. Here I be tryin’ to talk with Mr. Seekins about something that amounts to something. And ye can’t hear yourself think. Take your cheese and your crackers, Hime Look, and go over and stuff ’em into your toodle-oodlers. Let gentlemun that’s a-talkin’ serious bus’ness go on with their serious bus’ness. Now, Seekins, you said as how you’d seen King Bradish drunker’n a fiddler’s hoorah. What else?”
“I never said I seen him,” returned the man, sullenly.
“It’s the same thing; you meant it. Go ahead.” The old man’s tone was imperious.
Hiram and the rest of the crowd turned to him, inquiry on their faces. The showman leaned forward with especial insistence.
“I ain’t no hand to tattle——”
“You said that before, consarn ye!” This persistent delay that baffled Uncle Buck’s curiosity made him furious.