第5章

He looked about him as he came, smilingly, with an expression of princely amusement--as an elderly cabinet minister, say, strolling about a village where he had spent some months in his youth, a hamlet which he had then thought large and imposing, but which, being revisited after years of cosmopolitan glory, appeals to his whimsy and his pity.The youth's glance at the court-house unmistakably said: "Ah, I recall that odd little box.

I thought it quite large in the days before Ibecame what I am now, and I dare say the good townsfolk still think it an imposing structure!"With everything in sight he deigned to be amused, especially with the old faces in the "National House" windows.To these he waved his stick with airy graciousness.

"My soul!" said Mr.Davey."It seems to know some of us!""Yes," agreed Mr.Arp, his voice recovered, "and _I_ know IT.""You do?" exclaimed the Colonel.

"I do, and so do you.It's Fanny Louden's boy, 'Gene, come home for his Christmas holidays.""By George! you're right," cried Flitcroft; "Irecognize him now.""But what's the matter with him?" asked Mr.

Bradbury, eagerly."Has he joined some patent-medicine troupe?""Not a bit," replied Eskew."He went East to college last fall.""Do they MAKE the boys wear them clothes?"persisted Bradbury."Is it some kind of uniform?""I don't care what it is," said Jonas Tabor."If I was Henry Louden I wouldn't let him wear 'em around here.""Oh, you wouldn't, wouldn't you, Jonas?" Mr.

Arp employed the accents of sarcasm."I'd like to see Henry Louden try to interfere with 'Gene Bantry.Fanny'd lock the old fool up in the cellar."The lofty vision lurched out of view.

"I reckon," said the Colonel, leaning forward to see the last of it--" I reckon Henry Louden's about the saddest case of abused step-father I ever saw.""It's his own fault," said Mr.Arp--"twice not havin' sense enough not to marry.Him with a son of his own, too!""Yes," assented the Colonel, "marryin' a widow with a son of her own, and that widow Fanny!""Wasn't it just the same with her first husband --Bantry?" Mr.Davey asked, not for information, as he immediately answered himself."You bet it was! Didn't she always rule the roost? Yes, she did.She made a god of 'Gene from the day he was born.Bantry's house was run for him, like Louden's is now.""And look," exclaimed Mr.Arp, with satisfaction, "at the way he's turned out!""He ain't turned out at all yet; he's too young,"said Buckalew."Besides, clothes don't make the man.""Wasn't he smokin' a cigareet!" cried Eskew, triumphantly.This was final.

"It's a pity Henry Louden can't do something for his own son," said Mr.Bradbury."Why don't he send him away to college?""Fanny won't let him," chuckled Mr.Arp, malevolently."Takes all their spare change to keep 'Gene there in style.I don't blame her.

'Gene certainly acts the fool, but that Joe Louden is the orneriest boy I ever saw in an ornery world-full.""He always was kind of misCHEEvous," admitted Buckalew."I don't think he's mean, though, and it does seem kind of not just right that Joe's father's money--Bantry didn't leave anything to speak of--has to go to keepin' 'Gene on the fat of the land, with Joe gittin' up at half-past four to carry papers, and him goin' on nineteen years old.""It's all he's fit for!" exclaimed Eskew."He's low down, I tell ye.Ain't it only last week Judge Pike caught him shootin' craps with Pike's nigger driver and some other nigger hired-men in the alley back of Pike's barn."Mr.Schindlinger, the retired grocer, one of the silent members, corroborated Eskew's information.

"I heert dot, too," he gave forth, in his fat voice.

"He blays dominoes pooty often in der room back off Louie Farbach's tsaloon.I see him myself.