Lee's small blond face colored furiously; his voice was shrill in response. “Perhaps those he doesn't work, as you call it, are bigger fools than those he does,” said he.
“Say,” said the milkman, with a snarling sort of humor. He fastened brutally twinkling eyes on Lee. Everybody waited; the little barber held the razor poised over Amidon's chin. “When do your next dividends come in?” he inquired.
Lee gave an angry sniff, and flirted up his paper before his face.
“Why don't ye say?” pressed Tappan, with a hard wink at the others.
“I don't know that it is any of your business,” replied Lee.
“Ask when the millennium's comin',” said Amidon, in the chair.
“I wish I was as sure of the millennium as I am of those dividends,” declared Lee, brought to bay.
“Glad you've got faith in that dead-beat. He's owin' me for fifteen dollars' worth of milk-tickets, and I can't get a dam'ed penny of it,” said Tappan. He gave the sheet of paper he held a vicious crumple and flung it to the floor, whence little Willy Eddy timidly and softly gathered it up. “Gettin' up at four o'clock in the mornin',” continued the milkman, in a cursing voice, “an' milkin' a lot of dam'ed old kickin' cows, and gittin' on the road half-dead with sleep, to make a present to whelps like him, goin' to the City dressed up like Morgan hisself, ridin' to the station in a carriage he 'ain't paid for, with a man drivin' that can't git a cent out of him. Talk about coal strikes! Lord! I could give them miners points. Strikin' for eight hours a day! Lord! what's that? Here I've got to go home an' hay, if it is Sunday, to git enough for them dam'ed cows to eat in the winter! Eight hours! Hm! I work eighteen an' I 'ain't got anybody over me to strike again', 'cept the Almighty, an' I ruther guess He wouldn't make much account of it. Guess he'd starve me out ef I quit work, and not make much bones of it. I can stop peddlin' milk to sech as Carroll, but the milk sours, an' hanged if I know who suffers most. Here's my wife been makin' dam'ed little pot-cheeses out of the sour milk as 'tis, and sellin' 'em for two cents apiece. They're hangin' all over the bushes tied up in little rags. She's got to work all day to-day makin' butter to save the cream, and then I s'pose I've got to hustle round and find somebody to give the butter to. Carroll ain't the only one. I wish they all had to work as hard as I do one day for the things they git for nothin', the whole bilin' lot of 'em. He's the worst, though. What business did he have settlin' down on us here in Banbridge, I'd like to know? If he'd got to steal to feather his nest, why didn't he go to some other place, confound him?” The milkman's voice and manner were malignant.
The barber looked at him with some apprehension, but he spoke, still holding his razor aloft. “Now I rather guess you are jumpin' at exclusions too hasty, Mr. Tappan,” said he, in an anxiously pacific voice. “I don't know about them dividends Mr. Lee's talkin' about. Captain Carroll, he gave me a little dip.” The barber winked about mysteriously. “He told me he'd tell me when to come in, and he ain't told me yet, but I ain't no disprehension, but he's all right. Captain Carroll is a gentleman, he is.” Flynn's voice fairly quivered with affectionate championship. There were tears in his foolish eyes. He bent over Amidon's face, which grinned up at him cautiously through the lather.
“Let him pay me them milk-tickets, then, if he's all right,” Tappan said, viciously.