It was wonderful what a power of persuasion he had in Barnriff. But then he was an awe-inspiring figure, with his large luminous eyes and eagle cast of feature. And, too, words flowed from his lips like words from the pen of a yellow journal reporter, and his phraseology was almost as picturesque.
The boys were gathered waiting for him. There was anticipatory pleasure in their hang-dog faces. One of them almost laughed at a light sally from the cheery Gay, but luckily it was nipped in time by the interposition of the mean-minded Smallbones.
“I sez it right here, boys,” the latter observed, leaning with his back against the bar, and speaking with the air of having just arrived at a grave decision. “Old Sally Morby hadn’t no right to burry her man in oak. Now I ast you, Gay, as man to man, if you’d know’d we was goin’ to be ast to ante up fer her grub stake, wot could you ha’ done him handsome an’ moderate fer?”
Gay squared his fat shoulders. For the moment he was important. Moments of importance are always precious, even in places like Barnriff.
“Wal, I can’t rightly give it you down to cents without considerin’ Restless some,” he replied unctuously. “But we did Toby Randall slap-up in ash fer fifty odd dollars. Then ther’ was Sadie O’Brien. We did her elegant in soft pine for twenty-eight odd. It ’ud sure have been twenty-five on’y fer her weight. Y’see the planks under her had to be two inch or she’d ha’ fell through.”
He produced his note-book and rapidly glanced over the greasy pages.
“Y’see,” he observed, pausing at the entry he had been looking for, “Sally paid us a hundred an’ forty-seven dollars an’ seventy-five cents. I ’lows that’s handsome fer buryin’ a hop-headed skite like Charlie Morby was. But that wus her order, an’ bein’ a business man, an’ takin’ pride in my work, I sez to Restless, I sez, ‘It’s oak, boy, oak with silver plate trimmin’s, an’ a real elegant inscription to Charlie on it, tellin’ folks o’ virtues he didn’t never 90 handle when he was livin’.’ He sure didn’t deserve nothin’ better than an apple bar’l, leavin’ the head open so he had a chance to dodge the devil when he come along. An’ I guess, knowin’ Charlie, he’d ’a’ given him an elegant run fer it.”
“That’s it,” exclaimed Smallbones, peevishly. “That’s it. She goes an’ blows in her wad on a buzzock what ought to bin drownded in yaller mud, an’ we’ve got to ante her grub stake. Psha! I ain’t givin’ a cent.”
Lean Wilkes, the baker, was watching the trust schemer with baleful eye, and now his slow tongue evolved a pretty retort.