“I don’t think anything will before I’m back. I’d sooner leave you than Horacles in charge here. Will you do it and take two dollars a day?”
“Do it for nothing. Horacles’ll be compensation enough.”
“No, he won’t.—And see here, he can’t help being himself.”
“Enough said. I’ll strive to pity him. None of us was consulted about being born. And I’ll keep remembering that we was both raised at Gallipoleece, Ohio, and that he inherited a bigger outrage of a name than I did. That’s what comes of havin’ a French ancestor.—Only, he used to steal my lunch at school.” And Scipio’s bleached blue eye grew cold. Later injuries one may forgive, but school ones never.
“Didn’t you whale him?” asked the Agent.
“Every time,” said Scipio, “till he told Uncle. Uncle was mayor of Gallipoleece then. So I wasn’t ready to get expelled,—I got ready later; nothin’ is easier than gettin’ expelled,—but I locked up my lunch after that.”
“Uncle’s pretty good to him,” muttered the Agent. “Got him this position.—Well, nobody will expel you here. Look after things. I’ll feel easy to think you’re on hand.”
For that newspaper which the Agent had crushed into his pocket, Scipio searched cracks and corners, but searched in vain. A fear quite unreasoning possessed him for a while: could he but learn what was in the paper that had so stirred his patron, perhaps he could avert whatever the thing was that he felt in the air, threatening some sort of injury. He knew himself resourceful. Dislike of Horacles and Uncle had been enough to start his wish to thwart them—if there was anything to thwart; but now pride and gratitude fired him; he had been trusted; he cared more to be trusted than for anything on earth; he must rise equal to it now! The Agent had evidently taken the paper away with him—and so Scipio absurdly read all the papers. He collected old ones, and laid his hands upon the new the moment they were out of the mail-bag. It may be said that he lived daily in a wrapping of newspapers.
“Why, you have got Horacles laughing at you.”
This the observant Virginian pointed out to Scipio immediately on his arrival from Billings. Scipio turned a sickened look upon his friend. The look was accompanied by a cold wave in his stomach.