thirty-three--once! One thirty-three--twice! Third and last call! One--thirty--"
Then Eddie begun to raise his hand, but 'twas too late.
"One thirty-three and SOLD! To Mr. Milo Thompson for one hundred and thirty-three dollars!"
And just then come a shriek from the piazza; the Duchess and "Irene dear" had come out of the parlor.
Well! Talk about crowing! The way that Thompson crowd rubbed it in on the Smalls was enough to make you leave the dinner table. They had the servants take in them dishes, piece by piece, and every single article, down to the last butter plate, was steered straight by the Small crowd.
As for poor Eddie, when he come up to explain why he hadn't kept on bidding, his wife put him out like he was a tin lamp.
"Don't SPEAK to me!" says she. "Don't you DARE speak to me."
He didn't dare. He just run up a storm sail and beat for harbor back of the barn. And from the piazza Milo cackled vainglorious.
Me and Cap'n Jonadab and Peter T. felt so sorry for Eddie, knowing what he had coming to him from the Duchess, that we went out to see him. He was setting on a wrecked hencoop, looking heart-broke but puzzled.
"'Twas that Saltmarsh made me lose my nerve," he says. "I thought when he wouldn't bid there was something wrong with the dishes. And there WAS something wrong, too. Now what was it?"
"Maybe the price was too high," says I.
"No, 'twa'n't that. I b'lieve yet he thought they were imitations. Oh, if they only were!"
And then, lo and behold you, around the corner comes Adoniram Rogers. I'd have bet large that whatever conscience Adoniram was born with had dried up and blown away years ago. But no; he'd resurrected a remnant.
"Mr. Small," stammered Mr. Rogers, "I'm sorry you feel bad about not buying them dishes. I--I thought I'd ought to tell you--that is to say, I--Well, if you want another set, I cal'late I can get it for you--that is, if you won't tell nobody."
"ANOTHER set?" hollers Eddie, wide-eyed. "Anoth--Do you mean to say you've got MORE?"
"Why, I ain't exactly got 'em now, but my nephew John keeps a furniture store in South Boston, and he has lots of sets like that. I bought that one off him."
Peter T. Brown jumps to his feet.
"Why, you outrageous robber!" he hollers. "Didn't you say those dishes were old?"
"I never said nothing, except that they were like the plate that feller had on the piazza. And they was, too. YOU folks said they was old, and I thought you'd ought to know, so--"
Eddie Small threw up both hands. "Fakes!" he hollers. "Fakes! AND THOMPSON PAID ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE DOLLARS FOR 'EM! Boys, there's times when life's worth living. Have a drink."
We went into the billard-room and took something; that is, Peter and Eddie took that kind of something. Me and Jonadab took cigars.
"Fellers," said Eddie, "drink hearty. I'm going in to tell my wife. Fake dishes! And I beat Thompson on the davenport."
He went away bubbling like a biling spring. After he was gone Rogers looked thoughtful.
"That's funny, too, ain't it?" he says.
"What's funny?" we asked.
"Why, about that sofy he calls a davenport. You see, I bought that off John, too," says Adoniram.
HIS NATIVE HEATH
I never could quite understand why the folks at Wellmouth made me selectman. I s'pose likely 'twas on account of Jonadab and me and Peter Brown making such a go of the Old Home House and turning Wellmouth Port from a sand fleas' paradise into a hospital where city folks could have their bank accounts amputated and not suffer more'n was necessary. Anyway, I was elected unanimous at town meeting, and Peter was mighty anxious for me to take the job.
"Barzilla," says Peter, "I jedge that a selectman is a sort of dwarf alderman. Now, I've had friends who've been aldermen, and they say it's a sure thing, like shaking with your own dice. If you're straight, there's the honor and the advertisement; if you're crooked, there's the graft. Either way the house wins. Go in, and glory be with you."
So I finally agreed to serve, and the very first meeting I went to, the question of Asaph Blueworthy and the poorhouse comes up. Zoeth Tiddit--he was town clerk--he puts it this way:
"Gentlemen," he says, "we have here the usual application from Asaph Blueworthy for aid from the town. I don't know's there's much use for me to read it--it's tolerable familiar. 'Suffering from lumbago and rheumatiz'--um, yes. 'Out of work'--um, just so. 'Respectfully begs that the board will'--etcetery and so forth. Well, gentlemen, what's your pleasure?"
Darius Gott, he speaks first, and dry and drawling as ever. "Out of work, hey?" says Darius. "Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask if anybody here remembers the time when Ase was IN work?"
Nobody did, and Cap'n Benijah Poundberry--he was chairman at that time--he fetches the table a welt with his starboard fist and comes out emphatic.
"Feller members," says he, "I don't know how the rest of you feel, but it's my opinion that this board has done too much for that lazy loafer already. Long's his sister, Thankful, lived, we couldn't say nothing, of course. If she wanted to slave and work so's her brother could live in idleness and sloth, why, that was her business. There ain't any law against a body's making a fool of herself, more's the pity. But she's been dead a year, and he's done nothing since but live on those that'll trust him, and ask help from the town. He ain't sick--except sick of work. Now, it's my idea that, long's he's bound to be a pauper, he might's well be treated as a pauper. Let's send him to the poorhouse."
"But," says I, "he owns his place down there by the shore, don't he?"
All hands laughed--that is, all but Cap'n Benijah. "Own nothing," says the cap'n. "The whole rat trap, from the keel to maintruck, ain't worth more'n three hundred dollars, and I loaned Thankful four hundred on it years ago, and the mortgage fell due last September. Not a cent of principal, interest, nor rent have I got since. Whether he goes to the poorhouse or not, he goes out of that house of mine to-morrer. A man can smite me on one cheek and maybe I'll turn t'other, but when, after I HAVE turned it, he finds fault 'cause my face hurts his hand, then I rise up and quit; you hear ME!"
Nobody could help hearing him, unless they was deefer than the feller that fell out of the balloon and couldn't hear himself strike, so all hands agreed that sending Asaph Blueworthy to the poorhouse would be a good thing. 'Twould be a lesson to Ase, and would give the poorhouse one more excuse for being on earth. Wellmouth's a fairly prosperous town, and the paupers had died, one after the other, and no new ones had come, until all there was left in the poorhouse was old Betsy Mullen, who was down with creeping palsy, and Deborah Badger, who'd been keeper ever since her husband died.
The poorhouse property was valuable, too, specially for a summer cottage, being out on the end of Robbin's Point, away from the town, and having a fine view right across the bay. Zoeth Tiddit was a committee of one with power from the town to sell the place, but he hadn't found a customer yet. And if he did sell it, what to do with Debby was more or less of a question. She'd kept poorhouse for years, and had no other home nor no relations to go to. Everybody liked her, too--that is, everybody but Cap'n Benijah. He was down on her 'cause she was a Spiritualist and believed in fortune tellers and such. The cap'n, bein' a deacon of the Come-Outer persuasion, was naturally down on folks who wasn't broad-minded enough to see that his partic'lar crack in the roof was the only way to crawl through to glory.
Well, we voted to send Asaph to the poorhouse, and then I was appointed a delegate to see him and tell him he'd got to go. I wasn't enthusiastic over the job, but everybody said I was exactly the feller for the place.
"To