She went out. Issachar, staring after her, chuckled admiringly. “Smartest girl in THIS town,” he observed, with emphasis. “Head of her class up to high school and only sixteen and three-quarters at that.”
Captain Zelotes came bustling in a few minutes later. He went to his desk, paying little attention to his grandson. The latter loitered idly up and down the office and hardware shop, watching Issachar wait on customers or rush shouting into the yard to attend to the wants of others there. Plainly this was Issachar's busy day.
“Crimus!” he exclaimed, returning from one such excursion and mopping his forehead. “This doin' two men's work ain't no fun. Every time Labe goes on a time seem's if trade was brisker'n it's been for a month. Seems as if all creation and part of East Harniss had been hangin' back waitin' till he had a shade on 'fore they come to trade. Makes a feller feel like votin' the Prohibition ticket. I WOULD vote it, by crimustee, if I thought 'twould do any good. 'Twouldn't though; Labe would take to drinkin' bay rum or Florida water or somethin', same as Hoppy Rogers done when he was alive. Jim Young says he went into Hoppy's barber-shop once and there was Hoppy with a bottle of a new kind of hair-tonic in his hand. 'Drummer that was here left it for a sample,' says Hoppy. 'Wanted me to try it and, if I liked it, he cal'lated maybe I'd buy some. I don't think I shall, though,' he says; 'don't taste right to me.' Yes, sir, Jim Young swears that's true. Wan't enough snake-killer in that hair tonic to suit Hoppy. I—Yes, Cap'n Lote, what is it? Want me, do ye?”
But the captain did not, as it happened, want Mr. Price at that time. It was Albert whose name he had called. The boy went into the office and his grandfather rose and shut the door.
“Sit down, Al,” he said, motioning toward a chair. When his grandson had seated himself Captain Zelotes tilted back his own desk chair upon its springs and looked at him.
“Well, son,” he said, after a moment, “what do you think of it?”
“Think of it? I don't know exactly what—”
“Of the place here. Shop, yards, the whole business. Z. Snow and Company—what do you think of it?”
Privately Albert was inclined to classify the entire outfit as one-horse and countrified, but he deemed it wiser not to express this opinion. So he compromised and replied that it “seemed to be all right.”
His grandfather nodded. “Thanks,” he observed, dryly. “Glad you find it that way. Well, then, changin' the subject for a minute or two, what do you think about yourself?”