“It has only added to the general effect,” affirmed the Squire. “It's a clincher. Folks don't care now because Tasper Britt is awake. He has got plenty of business of his own to attend to without calling in sheriffs to slap on attachments.”
“Very good! The easier the better,” returned Colonel Wincott. “But when I hired you to look after the law part, Hexter, I reckoned you could counter every crack he made. Sit down, Vaniman!” He picked up the chair he had overturned and took it for himself. “You have seen the parade, some of it?”
“I saw a great deal of it, sir.”
“And you don't know where it's headed for?”
“No.”
The colonel leaned back and regarded the Squire with the satisfied contentment of a cat who had tucked away the last morsel of the canary. Then he winked at Vaniman. “Young man, did you ever hear of Wincott's Pure Rye?”
“No, sir.”
“Glad of it! Hope you never were familiar with any other brands. However, enough men did know about it in those dear, damp days beyond recall to make me independent of the pawnshop, to say the least. And, having cleaned up a good pot with whisky running down men's gullets, I reckoned I'd see what I could do with water running downhill. Do you get me at all so far?”
“No, sir.”
“Didn't suppose you would. I'm only shuffling the deck. Now for the deal! Awhile ago I came up into this state from the South and I bought the unorganized township that bounds this town on the north. It had gone begging for a buyer because it's mostly pond and water power. But it's what I wanted. And, having bought it, I used my check book and got some good lobbyists on the job and I got a conditional charter from the legislature. That is to say, it becomes a town charter automatically the moment I can report a certain number of inhabitants—not mere men, but families, regularly settled. Do you see?”