He chuckled inwardly as he said it. Captain Sol did understand. Also Mr. Phinney himself was beginning to understand a little.
The very day on which Williams and his foreman had called on the depot master and been dismissed so unceremoniously, that official paid a short visit to his mover.
“Sim,” he said, the twinkle still in his eye, “his Majesty, Williams the Conqueror, was in to see me just now and acted real peevish. He was pretty disrespectful to you, too. Called your outfit 'one horse.' That's a mistake, because you've got two horses at work right now. It seems a shame to make a great man like that lie. Hadn't you better lay off one of them horses?”
“Lay one OFF?” exclaimed Simeon. “What for? Why, we'll be slow enough, as 'tis. With only one horse we wouldn't get through for I don't know how long.”
“That's so,” murmured the Captain. “I s'pose with one horse you'd hardly reach the middle of the Boulevard by—well, before the tenth of the month. Hey?”
The tenth of the month! The TENTH! Why, it was on the tenth that that Omaha cousin of Olive Edwards was to—Mr. Phinney began to see—to see and to grin, slow but expansive.
“Hm-m-m!” he mused.
“Yes,” observed Captain Sol. “That white horse of yours looks sort of ailin' to me, Sim. I think he needs a rest.”
And, sure enough, next day the white horse was pronounced unfit and taken back to the stable. The depot master's dwelling moved, but that is all one could say truthfully concerning its progress.
At the depot the Captain was quieter than usual. He joked with his assistant less than had been his custom, and for the omission Issy was duly grateful. Sometimes Captain Sol would sit for minutes without speaking. He seemed to be thinking and to be pondering some grave problem. When his friends, Mr. Wingate, Captain Stitt, Hiram Baker, and the rest, dropped in on him he cheered up and was as conversational as ever. After they had gone he relapsed into his former quiet mood.