“Almost—live out—birthday—seventy—tombstone—all right.”
He closed his eyes, and, inasmuch as the town clock furnishes the official time for Rearward, the published report of Tommy McGuffy's going records that he passed at twenty-five minutes after eleven P.M., November 11, 1890.
Very few people know that time turned back one hour and a half in order that the reputation of Tommy McGuffy's tombstone for veracity might be spotless in the eyes of future generations.
Billy Skidmore, the sexton, arranged to have Rearward time ready for the sun when it rose upon the following morning.
IX. — HE BELIEVED THEM
He was a bachelor, and he owned a little tobacco store in the suburbs. All the labour, manual and mental, requisite to the continuance of the establishment, however, was done by the ex-newsboy, to whom the old soldier paid $4 per week and allowed free tobacco.
He had come into the neighbourhood from the interior of the state shortly after the war, and for a time there were not ten houses within a block of his shop. The shop is now the one architectural blemish in a long row of handsome stores. Miles of streets have been built up around it.
The old soldier used to sit in an antique armchair in the rear of his shop, smoking, from meal to meal.