“You seem to doubt his genuineness,” Asher remarked.
“I don’t believe he will assay well,” Jacobs agreed. “I’ve doubted him since the day he landed in Carey’s Crossing fifteen years ago. Inside of an hour and a half I caught him and Champers in a consultation so secret they fastened newspapers across the window to keep from being seen.”
“Where were you meanwhile?” 186
“Up on the roof, fixing the sign the wind had blown loose. When they saw me through the uncovered upper pane, they shaded that, too. I’ve little interest in a man like that.”
“Does he come here often?” Asher inquired.
“He’s here and away, but he never sets foot in Careyville. My guess is that he’s a part of the ’Co.’ of ‘Champers and Co.’ and that Hans Wyker is the rest of it. Also that in what they can get by fair means, each of the trio reserves the right to act alone and independently of the other two, but when it comes to a cut-throat game, they combine as readily as hydrogen and sulphur and oxygen; and, combined, they have the same effect on a proposition that sulphuric acid has on litmus paper. But this is all only a Jew’s guess, of course. For myself, I have business with only one of the three, Wyker. He doesn’t like my sheep, evidently, because he knows I keep track of his whisky selling in this town and keep the law forever hanging over him. But I’ve sworn under high heaven to fight that curse to humanity wherever I find it threatening, and under high heaven I’ll do it, too.”
Jacobs’ face was the face of a resolute man with whom law was law. Then the two talked of other things as they finished their meal.
John Jacobs was city bred, a merchant by instinct, a Jew in religion, and a strictly honest and exacting business man. Asher Aydelot had been a country boy and was by choice a farmer. He was a Protestant of the Methodist persuasion. It must have been his business integrity that first attracted Jacobs to him. Jacobs was a timid man, and no one else in Kansas, not even Doctor Carey, understood him or appreciated him quite as keenly as Asher Aydelot did.