“Stop a bit!” he said, desperately. “I want to ask you, did you ever know a feller called Gammett?”
“I forget, boss. I know fellers all over.”
The old man was sending Harvey the swift, impenetrable glances of a wild thing frightened. He was strapping his basket quickly. Harvey, gripping the gate in excitement, spoke commandingly.
“Wait! I’ve got something to tell you. Wait!”
The old pedlar hesitated, then silently acquiesced. He squatted once more at the foot of the fence, relighted his pipe, and prepared to listen. Once more, with the faint blue spiral of kinnikinnick smoke, the lost years came down on Harvey like a wave.
“There was a man,” began Harvey, abruptly, “a man who was down and out, five years ago.”
The pedlar glanced up at him.
“Most fellers bin that,” he suggested.
“Most fellers been that,” agreed Harvey, slowly. “But not many have the bad luck this one did. And one can’t rightly say it was his fault. He’d fought it. My faith, how he’d fought his luck for years! But it just seemed that everything he touched went wrong. Year by year he went down, and down, and a little bit farther down. He tried farmin’, but he hadn’t enough capital to tide over the bad seasons. He tried prospectin’, and his health gave out. At last,” he said, quietly, “this feller got so far down that he was workin’ for a Chinaman—for a Chink that kep’ a little store way up in the hills.”
“When that job failed,” Harvey went on, after a silence, “Gammett got him.”