TWO
I
In the clear glow of a lengthening twilight of spring Gordon Makimmon sauntered into Simmons’ store. The high, dusty windows facing the Courthouse were raised, and a warm air drifted in, faint eddies of the fragrance of flowering bushes, languorous draughts of a countryside newly green.
A number of men idling over a counter greeted him with a familiar and instantly alert curiosity. The clerk behind the counter bent forward with the brisk assumption of a business-like air. “Certainly,” Gordon replied to his query, pausing to allow his purpose to gain its full effect; “I want to order a suit of clothes.”
“Why, damn it t’ell, Gord!” exclaimed an individual, with a long, drooping nose, a jaw which hung loosely on a corded, bare throat; “it ain’t three weeks ago but you got a suit, and it ain’t the one you have on now, neither.”
“Shut up, Tol’able,” Buckley Simmons interposed, “you’ll hurt trade. Gordon’s the Dandy Dick of Greenstream.”
“Haven’t I a right to as many suits of clothes as I’ve a mind to?” Gordon demanded belligerently.
“Sure you have, Gord. You certainly have,” a pacific chorus replied.