“Thar now! She ain’t got no common business on ’er mind ter-day! This ain’t no mortgage, gentlemen, ner no jumpin’ account case. This is fight. She’s done cross the line an’ got on the criminal side o’ th’ docket, Jedge. Let’s go an’ stan’ eroun’ an’ see what’s up!”
But if the idlers sought excitement, they failed to get it. Aunt Tildy, after half an hour spent in consultation with her lawyer, issued from his office and, with one withering glance at the group, climbed into her buggy. When she turned it about, it slid as before, only this time the sound that came back seemed a defiance. Tim surveyed the little drama with intense interest.
“See ’er cut the horse, Jedge—three times ’twixt crossings! Mad? Dad blast my skin, she’s jes natchully er hornet now! Hit’s squire’s work.”
The pictures arrived a week or two later. They set the town wild with laughter. Merchants, clerks, and customers came out on the sidewalks up and down the single business street and exchanged criticisms after an ancient fashion of town people. There was Aunt Tildy, sure enough, in the act of holding a box of snuff; and there was the old, familiar, coming, but long delayed, sneeze! The supply of pictures was exhausted in thirty minutes. At ten o’clock they brought fifty cents each; at eleven, a dollar; and at noon Tim Broggins sold his copy to the town bank for one dollar and a half. The cashier was Aunt Tildy’s agent.
The laughter, which began down-town, spread over the dinner-hour up-town and rippled over the county for a week. No more striking advertisement had ever been put forth in that region. No other snuff could touch the trade. “The Coming Sneeze” brand had won and held the market.
Then one day Lawyer Thomas took the train for Macon and filed suit for $10,000, as damages direct and punitive, against the snuff company for infringement of copyright. For, on the day Aunt Tildy had come to town so angry, she had bought the negative of Belton and applied through him for a copyright on her own face as portrayed in that photograph. “The Coming Sneeze” was her own personal property.
After this fact became known, the idlers took their hats off and cheered Aunt Tildy whenever she passed. Her sole recognition of their friendliness was an abortive smile that flickered for an instant against the background of the coming sneeze.
Tim became oracular.
“Tell you what, boys!—Jedge—that’s er new p’int in law, on me! Don’t er man or er woman own his own face? Fer an instance, has er man got ter put his face on er record like er guano contrac’ or mule mortgidge befo’ he can pertec’ hisself? Dad blast my skin, nobody ain’t safe! I’m er goin’ right up-town an’ git my pictur’ struck off an’ patented now! Some o’ these smarties like Jack Cromby’ll be comin’ erlong here bime-by an’ er gittin’ me onter er Christmas cyard, an’ you on er valentine!” Tim laughed silently. “Po’ Jack!” he said. “Always did lack jedgment an’ allus will, I reck’n!”
Jack Cromby’s experience with the managers of his snuff company is not a matter of public record. He may have suffered criticism or he may have convinced them that their product was getting, throughout the rural districts for which it was manufactured, an advertisement worth all it might cost. If the airing of Aunt Tildy’s complaint was not confined to a city office and its spectacular values lost in the multiplicity of graver legal causes, the snuff company would not suffer much, if any. A local hearing would give him a chance to fill a column of the town’s weekly paper with a carefully prepared report of the trial, which report would be quoted in full in all the rural weeklies of the State. The advertisement department of his company would see to that.