"Oh, yes. But what's on your mind, Caleb? It can't be that you're going to start a plumber in business here? I don't know what cruder revenge a man could take on his worst enemies."
"No," said Caleb. "Heapin' coals o' fire on a man's head, accordin' to Scriptur', is my only way o' takin' revenge nowadays. It most generally does the other feller some good, besides takin' a lot o' the devil out o' yours truly. But about bathin'—well, I learned the good of it when I was a hospital nurse for a spell in the army, an' I've been pretty particular 'bout it ever since, though my bath-tub's only an army rubber blanket with four slats under the edges, to keep the water from gettin' away. I've talked cleanliness a good deal for years, an' told folks that there wa'n't no patent on my kind o' bath-tub; but it ain't over an' above handy, an' most folks in these parts have so much to do that they put off any sort o' work that they ain't kicked into doin'. So, the long an' short of it is that I'm goin' to back a bathin' establishment, for the use of the general public."
"You'll have your labor for your pains, Caleb."
"Don't be too sure o' that. Besides, I'm dead certain that bathin's a means o' grace. Doc Taggess says so, too, an' he ought to know, from his knowledge o' one side o' human nature. He knows a powerful lot about the other side, too, for what Taggess don't know about the human soul is more'n I ever expect to find out. Taggess is a Christian, if ever there was one."
"Right you are, but—have you thought over this project carefully?"
"Been thinkin' over it off an' on, ever since your contraption was put in. You see, it's this way. I own a little house that I lent money on from time to time, till the owner died an' I had to take it in—the mortgages got to be bigger than the house was worth. It's framed heavy enough for a barn, so the upstairs floor'll be strong enough to hold a mighty big tank o' water, an' the well is one o' the deep never-failin' kind. Black Sam, the barber, used to be body-servant to a man down South, an' knows how to give baths—I've had him take care o' me sometimes, when the malary stiffened my j'ints so I couldn't use my arms much. Well, Sam's to have the house, rent free, an' move his barber shop into it. He don't get more'n an hour or two o' work a day, so he'll have plenty o' time to 'tend to bath-house customers that don't know the ropes for themselves, an' we're to divide the receipts. I'm goin' to advertise it well. How's this?" and Caleb took from under the counter a cardboard stencil which he had cut as follows:—
A BATH FOR THE PRICE OF A DRINK AND A CIGAR, AND IT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER THAN BOTH OF THEM.
"That's a good advertisement, Caleb—a very good advertisement. But I thought five cents was the customary price of a drink or a cigar out here?"
"So 'tis—ten cents for both; but I've ciphered that it'll pay, an' Black Sam's satisfied. You see, fuel's cheap; besides, in summer time the upstairs part of that house, right under the roof, is about as hot, 'pears to me, as the last home o' the wicked, so if the tank's filled overnight, the water'll be warm by mornin'."