Well, to be honest, I felt pretty bad about that billiard room business. I was real sorry for old Ebenezer. Of course Taylor was a skinflint and a thorough-goin' mean man, but Ratty was his son and his pride, and to have a son play a dog's trick like that on the father that had, at least, tried to make somethin' out of him, seemed tough enough. And my conscience plagued me. I felt almost as if I was to blame somehow. I wa'n't, of course, but I felt that way. A feller's conscience is the most unreasonable part of his works; I've noticed it often.
But I needn't have wasted any sympathy on Ebenezer. For the fust little while after his boy went into the pool and sipio business, he was a sore chap. Then, all at once, I noticed that he took to hangin' around the "Parlors" consider'ble and one evenin' I saw him comin' out of there, all smiles. I was standin' on the store platform and as he passed me I hailed him. We hadn't spoken for a consider'ble spell, but I hadn't any grudge, for my part.
"Hello!" says I, "what are you so tickled about?"
I didn't know as he wouldn't throw somethin' at me for darin' to hail him, but no, he was ready to talk to anybody, even me.
"No use," says he, "that boy of mine's a mighty smart feller. He just beat Tom Baker three games runnin', and spotted him two balls on the last one. He's a wonder, if I do say it."
I looked at him. This didn't sound much like disinheritin'.
"Three games of what?" says I.
"Why, pool," says he, "of course. And Baker's been countin' himself the best player in the county. 'Rastus was playin' for the house. Him and Philander cleared over a hundred dollars in the last month. That ain't so bad for a young feller just startin' in, is it? I always knew that boy had the business instinct, if he'd only wake up to it. I've told folks so time and again."
He went along, chucklin' to himself, and I stood still and whistled. And when I heard that the old man had taken to callin' the anti-billiard-room crowd bigoted and narrer it didn't surprise me much. I judged that Ebenezer's opinions was like those of others of his tribe—dependent on the profit and loss account in the ledger. You can forgive your own kith and kin a lot easier than you can outsiders, especially if your moral scruples are the Taylor kind, to be reckoned in dollars and cents.
The carpenters were ready to begin work on our store addition at last, and we started right in to build on. 'Twas an awful job, enough sight worse than movin', but it had to be got through with some way and we wanted to have it finished when the summer season opened for good. If the store had been cluttered up and crowded afore, it was ten times worse now. The amount of energy and healthy remarks that Jacobs and I wasted in fallin' over and runnin' into things would have kept a steamer's engines goin' from Boston to Liverpool, I cal'late. I expected one of us would break our neck sartin sure, but we didn't and, by the fust of July we thought we could see the end.