As the business brains of our delegation, Mr. Boggs, intrusted with the bargaining, would not say twenty-five dollars. Mr. Boggs would not say anything remotely suggesting twenty-five dollars. Mr. Boggs would say good day, which he forthwith did in great disgust of spirit. From Mr. Barker we went to Mr. Pompany. Mr. Pompany neither barked nor purred. He mumbled. The upshot of his submaxillary communication was a dim “Twenty dollars, take it or leave it.” We left it, and Mr. Pompany, the latter with a Parthian arrow sticking in his soul (if he had one) in the form of Mr. Boggs's firm opinion, delivered in a baleful squeak, that he might be only an ignoramus, but had rather the appearance and bearing of a swindler.
“Thieves!” piped Mr. Boggs on the sidewalk. “Thieves and fatheads, the whole trade. What now?”
“Schepstein,” said the Little Red Doctor. “He's a thief too. But he knows.” Schepstein received us in his grubby, grimy, desolated front room, which did duty as an office, with a malevolent cross-fire from his distorted eyes. “Bit of business?” he repeated after Mr. Boggs. “What business? State your business.”
“For sale,” piped Mr. Boggs, handing him the letter which he had taken from the envelope.
Hardly a glance did Schepstein give it. “Thomas Jonathan Jackson? Who'she? And who's this Major Pemberton?”
Mr. Boggs explained, in indignant piccolo tones, who Thomas Jonathan Jackson was. Not about Major Pemberton, however. No authority had been given to our deputation to disclose the ownership of the letter; So far as we were aware at that time, it would have meant nothing to Schepstein anyway. We had no reason, then, to suppose that he even knew Madam Tallafferr.
“Humph!” grunted Schepstein. “Stonewall Jackson, eh? Might be worth something. Lessee the envelope.”
He looked it over carefully, front and back, folded the letter which he had not even read, and slipped it back in. “Leave it with me overnight,” he suggested negligently. “I'll think it over and make you a price in the morning.”
“Think as much as you like,” returned Mr. Boggs, retrieving the treasure. “We'll keep this. And we'll be back at eleven to-morrow.”
Observe, now, the advantages of living in a small self-centered community like Our Square, where everybody has an intimate (if not invariably friendly) interest in everybody else's affairs. Inky Mike had noted with curiosity our visit to Schepstein. As a press tender, the inky one naturally aspires to be a reporter, but his ideal reporter, being derived mainly from journalism as set forth in the movies, is a species of glorified compromise between Sherlock Holmes and Horace Greeley in a rich variety of disguises. He had no disguise handy, but he washed his face and followed Schepstein when that astute bargainer set forth immediately after our visit. Further, he listened outside the booth while the object of his sleuthing phoned a telegram. As he reported it in great excitement to our trio, it was addressed to a gentleman named Olds, in Cincinnati and read to this esoteric effect:—