Part 15

“My brother--the junior partner here”--he dwelt heavily upon the word _junior_, making of it a most disqualifying adjective--“he also thinks in this matter the same way as I do. If you don't believe me, ask him for yourself. There he stands like a dumb engraved image--ask him.”

And Mr. Ike, making craven surrender, raised both hands in token of his capitulation and weakly murmured, “Yes.”

*****

The third of the joint debates, which, as it turned out, was to be the last one of the series, began according to schedule and announcement at the boat store corner in the presence of an assemblage mustering up in the hundreds. In fact the _Daily Evening News_ reporter, in the introductory paragraph of his account, referred to it, I believe, as “a sea of upturned faces.” Mr. Montjoy led off first. He had his say, for the better part of an hour, speaking with much fluency from a small board platform that was built up against the side of the old boat store and occasionally, with a fretful shake of his head, raising his voice so it might be heard above the rumbling objurgations of the first mate of the _Cumberland Queen_ who, thirty yards down the old gravel levee, was urging his black rousters to greater speed as they rolled the last of a consignment of tobacco hogsheads across the lower wharf boat and aboard the _Queen's_ boiler deck. Mr. Montjoy concluded with a neat verbal flourish and sat down, mopping his moistened brow with a square of fine cambric. Mr. Montjoy never permitted him-self to sweat and in public, at least, he perspired but seldom; but there were times when he did diffuse a perceptible glow.

His rival arose to answer him. He started off--Houser did--by stating that he was not running on his family record for this office. He was running on his own record, such as it was. Briefly, but vigorously, he defended his uncle; a thing he had done before. Continuing, he would say Mr. Montjoy had accused him of being young. He wished to plead guilty to that charge. If it were a defect, to be counted against him, time would probably cure him of it and he thought the Senate Chamber at Frankfort, this state, provided a very suitable spot for the aging process. (Laughter and applause.) He had a rather whimsical drawl and a straightforward, commonplace manner of delivery.

He continued, and I quote:

“Some of you may have heard somewhere--casually--that my opponent had a grandfather. Stories to that general effect have been in circulation for quite some little time in this vicinity. I gather from various avenues of information that my opponent is not exactly ashamed of his grandfather. I don't blame him for that. A person without many prospects so far as the future is concerned is not to be blamed for dwelling rather heavily upon the past. But, fellow citizens, doesn't it strike you that in this campaign we are having altogether too much grandfather and not enough grandson? (Renewed laughter from the Houser adherents and Mr. Montjoy's face turning a violent red.) It strikes me that the stock is sort of petering out. It strikes me that the whale has bred a minnow.

“And so, in light of these things, I want to make this proposition here and now: I want every man in this county whose grandfather owned eighty slaves and four thousand acres of bottom lands to vote for Mr. Montjoy. And all I ask for myself is that every man whose grandfather didn't own eighty slaves and four thousand acres, should cast his vote for me.” (A voice, “My grandpop never owned nary nigger, Toby,--I reckin you git my vote without a struggle, boy.”)

Along this strain Mr. Houser continued some minutes. It was a line he had not taken in either of his previous arguments with his opponent. He branched away from it to tell what he meant to do for the people of the district in the event of his nomination and election but presently he came back again to the other theme, while Judge Priest grinned up at him from his place in the edge of the crowd and Mr. Montjoy fidgeted and fumed and wriggled as though the chair upon which he sat had been the top of a moderately hot stove. From these and from yet other signs it might have been noted that Mr. Montjoy, under the nagging semihumorous goadings of young Houser, was rapidly losing his temper, which, by our awkward Anglo-Saxon mode of speech, is but another way of saying he was not losing his temper at all but, instead, finding out that he had one.

The _Cumberland Queen_ blew her whistle for departure and as the roar died away Mr. Houser might be heard in the act of finishing a sentence touching with gentle irony upon the topic which seemed so to irk and irritate Mr. Montjoy. He never finished it.

Up, from his chair, sprang Mr. Montjoy, and shook a knotted fist beneath Mr. Houser's nose.

“How dare you?” he demanded. “How dare you indulge in your cheap sarcasm--your low scurrilities--regarding one of the grandest men the Southland ever produced?”

His voice turned falsetto and soared to a slate-pencilly screech:

“I repeat it, sir--how dare you--you underbred ignoramus--you who never knew what it was to have a noble grandfather! Nobody knows who your grandfather was. I doubt whether anybody knows who your father----”

Perhaps it was what Mr. Montjoy appeared to be on the point of asserting. Perhaps it was that his knuckles, as he brandished his fist in Mr. Houser's face, grazed Mr. Houser's cheek.

Mr. Houser stretched forth a solid arm and gripped a handful of sinewy fingers in the lapels of Mr. Montjoy's coat. He didn't strike Mr. Montjoy, but he took him and he shook him--oh, how he shook him. He shook him up and down, and back and forth and to and fro and forward and rearward; shook him until his collar came undone and his nose glasses flew off into space; shook him until his hair came down in his eyes and his teeth rattled in his jaw; shook him into limp, breathless, voiceless helplessness, and then holding him, dangling and flopping for a moment, slapped him once very gently, almost as a mother might slap an erring child of exceedingly tender years; and dropped the limp form, and stepped over it and climbed down off the platform into the midst of the excited crowd. The third of the series of the joint debates was ended; also the series itself.

Judge Priest instantly shoved forward, his size and his impetuosity clearing the path for him through a press of lesser and less determined bodies. He thrust a firm hand into the crook of his nephew's arm and led him off up the street clear of those who might have sought either to compliment or to reprehend the young man. As they went away linked together thus, it was observed that the judge wore upon his broad face a look of sore distress and it was overheard that he grievously lamented the most regrettable occurrence which had just transpired and that openly he reproached young Houser for his elemental response to the verbal attacks of Mr. Montjoy and, in view of the profound physical and spiritual shock to Mr. Montjoy's well-known pride and dignity, that he expressed a deep concern for the possible outcome. Upon this last head, he was particularly and shrilly emphatic.

In such a fashion, with the nephew striving vainly to speak in his own defence and with the uncle as constantly interrupting to reprimand him and to warn him of the peril he had brought upon his head, and all in so loud a voice as to be clearly audible to any persons hovering nearby, the pair continued upon their journey until they reached Soule's Drug Store. There, with a final sorrowful nod of the judge's head and a final shake of his admonishing forefinger, they parted. The younger man departed, presumably for his home to meditate upon his foolhardy conduct and the older went inside the store and retired to Mr. Soule's little box of an office at the rear, hard by the prescription case. Carefully closing the door after him to insure privacy, he remained there for upwards of an hour, engaged undoubtedly in melancholy reflections touching upon the outbreak of his most culpable kinsman and upon the conceivable consequences. He must have done some writing, too, for when at length he emerged he was holding in one hand a sealed envelope. Summoning to him Logan Baker, Mr. Soule's coloured errand boy, he entrusted the note to Logan, along with a quarter of a dollar for messenger hire, and sent the black boy away. From this circumstance several persons who chanced to be in Soule's, hypothesised that very probably the judge had taken it upon himself to write Mr. Montjoy a note of apology in the name of his nephew and of himself. However, this upon the part of the onlookers was but a supposition. They merely were engaged in the old practice, so hallowed among bystanders, of putting two and two together, by such process sometimes attaining a total of four, and sometimes not.

As regards, on the other hand, Quintus Q. Montjoy, he retained no distinct recollection of the passage homeward, following his mishandling by Tobias J. Houser. For the time a seething confusion ruled his being. Mingled emotions of chagrin, rage and shame--but most of all rage--boiled in his brain until the top of his skull threatened to come right off. Since he was a schoolboy until now, none had laid so much as an impious finger upon him. For the first time in his life he felt the warm strong desire to shed human blood, to see it spatter and pour forth in red streams. The spirit of his grandfather waked and walked within him; anyway it is but fair to assume that it did so.

Somebody must have rebuttoned Mr. Montjoy's collar for him and readjusted his necktie. Somebody else of equally uncertain identity must have salvaged his glasses and restored them to their customary place on the bridge of his slender nose. True, he preserved no memory of these details. But when, half an hour after the encounter, a hired hack deposited him at his yard gate and when Mr. Barnhill, who it would appear dimly and almost as a figment from a troubled dream, accompanied him on the ride, had dismounted and had volunteered to help him alight from the vehicle, meanwhile offering words intended to be sympathetic, Mr. Montjoy found collar, necktie and glasses all properly bestowed.

Within the sanctified and solitary precincts of his library, beneath the grim, limned eyes of his ancestor, Mr. Montjoy re-attained a measure of outward calm and of consecutive thought; coincidently with these a tremendous resolution began to harden inside of him. Presently as he walked the floor, alternately clenching and unclenching his hands, the telephone bell sounded. Answering the call, he heard coming across the line the familiar voice of one, who, in the temporary absence of her husband from the city, now undertook to offer advice. It would seem that Mrs. Maydew had but heard of the brutal assault perpetrated upon her friend; she was properly indignant and more than properly desirous that a just vengeance be exacted. It would seem in this connection she had certain vigorous suggestions to offer. And finally it would seem she had just seen the evening paper and desired to know whether Mr. Montjoy had seen his copy?

Mr. Montjoy had not. After a short interchange of views, when, from intensity of feeling, the lady fairly made the wire sibilate and sing as her words sped over it, she rang off and Mr. Montjoy summoned his butler. His was the only roof in town which harboured a butler beneath it. Other families had male servants--of colour--who performed duties similar to those performed by Mr. Mont joy's man but they didn't call these functionaries butlers and Mr. Montjoy did. He sent the butler out into the yard to get the paper, which a boy had flung over the fence palings in a twisted wisp. And when the butler brought it to him he opened, to read, not the _Daily Evening News_ highly impartial account of the affair at the boat store corner--that could come later--but to read first off a card signed _Veritas_ which was printed at the bottom of the second column of the second inside page, immediately following the editorial comment of the day. It was this card to which young Mrs. Maydew had particularly directed his attention.

He bent his head and he read. The individual who chose to hide behind the nom de plume of _Veritas_ wrote briefly and to the point. At the outset he confessed himself as one who harboured old-fashioned ideals. Therefore he abhorred the personal altercations which in these latter and degenerate days so often marred the course of public discussions between gentlemen entertaining opposite views upon public problems or private matters. And still more did he deplore the common street brawls, not unmarked by the use of lethal weapons and sometimes by tragically fatal results to one or the other of the parties engaged, which had been known before now to eventuate from the giving and taking of the offensive word, or blow. Hardly need the writer add that he had in mind the unfortunate affray of even date in a certain populous quarter of our city. Without mentioning names, he, _Veritas_, took that deplorable occurrence for his present text. It had inspired him to utter these words of protest against the vulgarity, the coarseness and the crassness of the methods employed for the appeasing of individual and personal wrongs. How much more dignified, how much more in keeping with the traditions of the soil, and the very history of this proud old commonwealth, was the system formerly in vogue among gentlemen for the adjudication of their private misunderstandings! Truly enough the law no longer sanctioned the employment of the _code duello_; indeed for the matter of that, the law of the land had never openly sanctioned it; but once upon a time a jealous regard for his own outraged honour had been deemed sufficient to lift a Southern gentleman to extremes above the mere written letter of the statutes. “_O tempora, O mores!_ Oh, for the good old days!” And then came the signature.

Barely had Mr. Montjoy concluded the reading and the re-reading of this, when Mr. Calhoun Tabscott was announced and promptly entered to proffer his hand and something more, besides. Mr. Tabscott carried with him a copy of the Daily Evening News opened at the inside page. His nostrils expanded with emotion, his form shook with it.

In ten words these two--Mr. Montjoy as the person aggrieved and Mr. Tabscott as his next friend--found themselves in perfect accord as to the course which now should be pursued. At once then, Montjoy sat down at his mahogany writing desk and Mr. Tabscott sat down behind him where he could look over the other's shoulder and together they engaged in the labours of literary composition.

But just before he seated himself Mr. Montjoy pointed a quivering finger at the desk and, in a voice which shook with restrained determination, he said impressively, in fact, dramatically:

“Calhoun Tabscott, that desk belonged to my grandfather, the old General. He used it all his life--in Virginia first and then out here. At this moment, Calhoun Tabscott, I can almost feel him hovering above me, waiting to guide my pen.”

And Mr. Tabscott said he felt that way about it, himself.

*****

In spare moments at home Judge Priest was addicted to the game of croquet. He played it persistently and very badly. In his side yard under his dining-room window rusted wickets stood in the ordained geometric pattern between painted goal posts, and in a box under a rustic bench in the little tottery summerhouse beneath the largest of the judge's silver leaf poplar trees were kept the balls and the mallets--which latter instruments the judge insisted on calling mauls. And here, in this open space, he might be found on many a fine afternoon congenially employed, with some neighbourhood crony or a chance caller for his antagonist. Often, of mornings, when he had a half hour or so of leisure, he practiced shots alone.

On the morning which immediately followed the day of the broken-off joint debate at the boat-store corner, he was so engaged. He had his ball in excellent alignment and fair distance of the centre wickets, and was stooping to deliver the stroke when he became aware of his nephew approaching him hurriedly across the wide lawn.

“Uncle Billy,” began that straightforward young man, “something has happened, and I've come to you with it right off.”

“Son,” said the judge, straightening up reluctantly, “something happens purty nigh every day. Whut's on your mind this mornin'?”

“Well, suh, I was eating breakfast a little bit ago, when that Cal Tabscott came to the front door. He sent word he wouldn't come in, so I went out to the door to see what it was he wanted. He was standing there stiff and formal as a ramrod, all dressed up in his Sunday clothes, and wearing a pair of gloves, too--this weather! And he bowed without a word and handed me a letter and when I opened it it was a challenge from Quint Montjoy--a challenge to fight a duel with him, me to name the weapons, the time and the place! That's what I've got to tell you.”

His uncle's eyes opened innocently wide. “Boy, you don't tell me?” he said. “And whut did you do then?”

“Well, suh, I came within an ace of just hauling off and mashing that blamed idiot in the mouth--coming to my door with a challenge for a duel! But I remembered what you told me yesterday about keeping my temper and I didn't do it. Then I started to tear up that fool note and throw the pieces in his face.”

“You didn't do that neither, did you?” demanded the judge quickly, with alarm in his voice. “You kept it?”

“I didn't do that either and I kept the note,” replied the younger man, answering both questions at once. “I shut the door in Tabscott's face and left him on the doorstep and then I went and put on my hat and came right on over here to see you. Here's the note--I brought it along with me.”

His uncle took from him the single sheet of note paper and adjusted his specks. He gazed admiringly for a moment at the embossed family crest at the top and read its contents through slowly.

“Ah hah,” he said; “seems to be regular in every respect, don't it?--polite, too. To the best of my remembrances I never seen one of these challenges before, but I should judge this here one is got up strictly accordin' to the Code. Son, our ancestors certainly were the great hands for goin' accordin' to the codes, weren't they? If it wasn't one Code, it was another, with them old fellers. Quintus Q. Montjoy writes a nice hand, don't he?”

With great care, he folded the note along its original crease, handling it as though it had been a fragile document of immense value and meanwhile humming a little tuneless tune abstractedly. Still humming, he put the paper in an ancient letter wallet, wrapped a leather string about the wallet, and returned wallet and string to the breast pocket of his black seersucker coat.

“Son,” he said when all this had been accomplished, “I reckin you done the right thing in comin' straight to me. I must compliment you.”

“Yes, suh, much obliged,” said young Houser, “but, Uncle Billy, what would you advise my doing now?”

He rubbed his forehead in perplexity.

“Why, nothin'--nothin' a'tall,” bade his uncle, as though surprised at any suggestion of uncertainty upon the nephew's part. “You ain't got a thing to do, but jest to go on back home and finish up your breakfast. It ain't wise to start the day on an empty stomach, ever. After that, ef I was you, I would put in the remainder of the day remainin' perfectly ca'm and collected and whilst so engaged I wouldn't say nothin' to nobody about havin' received a challenge to fight a duel.” He regripped his mallet. “Son, watch me make this shot.” He stopped and squinted along the imaginary line from his ball to the wicket.

“But, Uncle Billy, I----”

“Son, please don't interrupt me ag'in. Jimmy Bagby is comin' over this evenin' to play off a tie match with me, and I aim to be in shape fur him when he does come. Now run along on back home like I told you to and keep your mouth shet.”

The judge whacked his ball and made an effective shot--or rather an effective miss--and Tobe Houser betook himself away wagging his puzzled head in a vain effort to fathom the enigma of his relative's cryptic behaviour.

Approximately thirty-six hours passed without public developments which might be construed as relating to the matter chiefly in hand and then--in the early afternoon--young Houser returned to the house of his uncle, this time, finding its owner stretched out for his after-dinner nap upon an old and squashy leather couch in the big old-timey sitting-room. The judge wasn't quite asleep yet. He roused as his nephew entered.

“Uncle Billy,” began young Houser, without preamble, “you told me yesterday not to do anything and I've obeyed your orders although I didn't understand what you were driving at, exactly, but now I must do something if I aim to keep my self-respect or to stay in this race--either one, or both. Unless I take up the dare he's laid down in front of me, Montjoy's going to brand me on the stump as a coward. Yes, suh, that's his intention--Oh, it came to me straight. It seems Mrs. Horace K. Maydew told old Mrs. Whitridge this morning in strict confidence and Mrs. Whitridge just took her foot in hand and put out to tell Aunt Puss Lockfoot and Aunt Puss didn't lose any time getting through the alley gate into my back yard to tell my wife.

“Yes, suh, if I keep silent and don't take any notice of his challenge, Montjoy's going to get up before this whole town at a mass meeting and denounce me as a coward,--he's going to say I'm willing enough to take advantage of being younger and stronger than he is to attack him with my bare hands, but that I'm afraid to back up my act where it puts my hide in danger. I know mighty good and well who's behind him, egging him on--I can see her finger in it plain enough. She hopes to see me humiliated and she hopes to see your chances hurt in your next race. She aims to strike at you through me and ruin us both, if she can.

“But, Uncle Billy, all that being so, doesn't alter the situation so far as I'm concerned. The man doesn't live that can stand up and brand me as a sneaking quitting coward and not have to answer for it. One way or another, it will come to a pass where there's bound to be shooting. I've just got to do something and do it quick.”

“Well, son,” said Judge Priest, still flat on his back, “I sort of figgered it out that things might be takin' some sech a turn as this. I've heard a few of the rumours that're be-ginin' to creep round, myse'f. I reckin, after all, you will have to answer Mister Montjoy. In fact, I taken the trouble this mornin' to wrop up your answer and have it all ready to be sent over to Mister Montjoy's place of residence by the hands of my boy Jeff.”

“You wrapped it up?” queried Houser, bewildered again.

“That's whut I said--I wropped it up,” answered the judge. He heaved himself upright and crossed the room to his old writing table that stood alongside one of the low front windows and from the desk took up a large squarish object, securely tied up in white paper with an address written upon one of its flat surfaces.

“Jeff!” he called, “oh, you Jeff.”

“Why, Uncle Billy, that looks like a book to me,” said Mr. Houser. Assuredly, this was a most mystified young man.

“It ain't no box of sugar kisses--you kin be shore of that much, anyway,” stated that inscrutable uncle of his. “You're still willin', ain't you, son, to set quiet and be guided by me in this matter?”

“Yes, suh, I am. That is, I'm perfectly willing to take your advice up to a certain point but----”