The parsimony of old Simon Walton could not have been better illustrated than by the fact that not a ray of light showed itself in all the rooms of the house. It was said of him that, fond of smoking though he was, he never lighted his pipe without getting a match and tobacco from some one else. At all events, he was at home. And as he went up the uneven brick walk, Wynn saw him seated on the front porch without his coat.
He was tall, lank, and raw-boned, and though nearly seventy years of age, his brown hair and short, scraggy whiskers were devoid of the slightest touch of gray. He was a man who, though outwardly sound of body, brain, and limb, was not without certain haunting fears of dissolution. He had had a slight stroke of paralysis which had left a numbness in his right side, and he was constantly trying to obey certain directions Dearing had laid down on the day his clerks had found him unable to rise from his desk in his bank. Dearing's skill had put him on his feet again, and the young doctor had tried diplomatically to show his patient that the cause of the trouble lay in an overworked brain too sharply centred on a none too worthy purpose. But in this he had failed. Old Simon would have believed in any lotion, any surgical operation, or any medicine prescribed by Dearing, no matter how costly, for that was in the young man's line; but he declined to listen to any hint—from such a source, at least—that his mental watchfulness ought to be curbed. He had won by his method, and that was ample proof of its correctness. He had risen from between the plough-handles, he told Wynn with a satirical laugh, and men who had advised him to think less of the almighty dollar and more of his God were in their mountain hovels giving away advice for others to live by. The wise fellows who had said in his youth that he was “as close as the bark on a tree” and “too mean to live” were now ready to beg at his feet for money to enable them to purchase food for their families.
“Well, here you are at last!” he thundered, as Wynn approached through the gloom. “And it's high time, I am here to say! It doesn't take a man two hours to go to that bank and bring back a simple statement like that. I want to know to a fraction of a cent, too, just how that thing stands, and—”
“Well, you don't owe me a penny, Mr. Walton.” Dearing laughed. “I only wish you did.”
“Oh, I thought it was Fred!” old Simon ejaculated, not a little chagrined by his lack of hospitality. “Me and him have had a little quarrel over his way of doing things, and I was looking for him to bring some papers from the bank. He went off with the key an hour ago, and hasn't showed up yet. Have you seen anything of him?”
“No; in fact, that's what I dropped in for. I wanted to speak to him.”
“Then I reckon he's not at your house calling on Miss Margaret. I thought he might be there, or gone to take that other girl, the daughter of that old picture-painter, to meeting. I picked up a note from her to him the other day, making some appointment or other. I might know he wasn't at your house, though, after the talk I had with the General. Huh! your uncle needn't be mealy-mouthed with me about what he thinks of the scamp! In my day and time a fellow of that stripe would be egged out of the community he lived in. But the blamed fools here in Stafford say Fred's pardonable to some extent because I've saved up a few cents. Huh! I'll show them and I'll show him a thing or two before I am through! I've given him a good education at a fine, high-priced college, and put him in the bank in a place of trust, and he is treating it as if it was a front seat at a circus. Huh! they all laugh and call him the 'Stafford Prince'; they say he is a high-roller; that he's invented a cocktail, and lets bank-notes go like leaves in a high wind. They needn't say it is due to the little I've made, either, for there's yourself, for instance. You had money and property left you, but it didn't make a stark, staring idiot out of you. By gum! I never see you or hear of your fine operations without wanting to cuff that fellow behind the ear and kick him out into the street. Came to breakfast this morning with his eyes all bunged up and swollen. There is one thing about him that is to his credit, I'll admit, and that is he won't lie when you are looking him smack dab in the face, and when I asked him if he had been playing poker he acknowledged it. Think of that! A boy of mine—of Simon Walton's—playing cards for whopping big stakes when I have toiled and stinted and saved as I have to gain the little headway I've got.”
“Well, I see he is not here,” Dearing said, awkwardly. “Perhaps I can find him up-town.”
“Don't hurry; set down,” and the gaunt man stood up and pointed to another chair. “I clean forgot to be polite, I'm so worked up. Take a chair—take a chair. I simply want to see what it feels like to sit and talk to a decent man under thirty.”
“No, I thank you, Mr. Walton, I really can't stay,” and Dearing laid his hand gently on the quivering shoulder of the old man. “But I want you to remember my warning about that little trouble of yours. You must not let things stir you up like this. You can't stand it, you know, as well as some other men can.”