Chapter 12

"And that's what soured him on the world?"

"Not altogether. He had a daughter--Margaret. She was the most beautiful woman in the world...." I suspect my voice broke a little just there, for there was a shade of respectful sympathy in the monosyllable with which he filled the pause. "He swore she should never marry a Northerner, but she did; I guess, being a Bohun, she had to, after hearing she must not. There were two of us that loved her, but she chose Sam Graham...."

"Why," he said awkwardly--"I'm sorry."

"I'm not: she was right, if I couldn't see it that way. They ran away-- and so did I. I went East, but they came back to Radville. Colonel Bohun never forgave them, but they were very happy till she died. Betty's their daughter, of course: Sam's not the kind that marries more than once."

Duncan thought this over without comment until we reached our gate. There he paused for a moment.

"He's got plenty of money, I presume--old Bohun?"

"So they say. Probably not much now, but a great deal more than he needs."

"Then why doesn't somebody get after the old scoundrel and make him do something for that poor--for Miss Graham?" he asked indignantly.

"He tried it once, but they wouldn't listen. His conditions were impossible," I explained. "She was to renounce her father and take the name of Bohun------."

"What rot!" Duncan growled. "What an old fiend he must be! Of course he knew she'd refuse."

"I suspect he did."

Duncan hesitated a bit longer. "Anyhow," he said suddenly, "somebody ought to get after him and make him see the thing the right way."

"S'pose you try it, Mr. Duncan?" I suggested maliciously, as we went up the walk.

He stopped at the door. "Perhaps I shall," he said slowly.

"I'd advise you not to. The last man that tried it has no desire to repeat the experiment."

"Who was he?"

"An old fool named Homer Littlejohn."

Duncan put out his hand. "Shake!" he insisted. "We'll talk this over another time."

We went in very quietly, lit our candles, and with elaborate care avoided the home-made burglar-alarm (a complicated arrangement of strings and tinpans on the staircase, which Miss Carpenter insists on maintaining ever since Roland Barnette missed a dollar bill and insisted his pocket had been picked on Main Street) and so mounted to our rooms. As we were entering (our doors adjoin) a thought delayed my good-night.

"By the way, did you get your invitation to Josie Lockwood's party, Mr. Duncan? I happened to see it on the hall table this evening."

"Yes," he assented quietly.

"It's to be the social event of the year. I hope you'll enjoy it."

"I'm not going."

"Not going!... Why not?"

"It's against the rules at first--I mean, business rules. I'll be so busy at the store, you know."

"Josie'll be disappointed."

"Thank you," said he gratefully. "Good-night."

Alone, I was fain to confess he baffled my understanding.

The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning: Duncan's hands were full almost from the first, and he had to relegate such matters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated store, shake Sam's hand, and see what the new partner was really like. Sothern and Lee's was for some days quite deserted, especially after Duncan took a leaf out of their book, bought an ice-cream freezer and began to serve dabs of cream in the sody. I've always maintained that our Radville folks are pretty thoroughly sot in their ways (the phrase is local), but the way they flocked to Graham's forced me to amend the aphorism with the clause: "except when their curiosity is aroused." Every woman in town wanted to know what Graham and Duncan carried that Sothern and Lee didn't, and how much cheaper they were than the more established concern; also they wanted to know Mr. Duncan. I suspect no drug-store ever had so many inquiries for articles that it didn't carry, but might possibly, or ought to, in the estimation of the prospective purchasers, as well as that at no time had Radvillians happened to think of so many things that they could get at a druggist's. People drove in from as far as twenty miles away, as soon as the news reached them, to buy notepaper and stamps--people who didn't write or receive a letter a month. Will Bigelow, even, dropped round and bought samples of the tobacco stock, from two-fors up to ten-centers--and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanner's soda and cigarette trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the first, and Roland Barnette gave it his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared.

Duncan certainly did strive to please. No man ever worked harder in a Radville store than he did. And from the time that he began to believe there would be some reward for his exertions, that the business was susceptible to being built up by the employment of progressive methods, he grew astonishingly prolific of ideas, from our sleepy point of view. The window displays were changed almost daily, to begin with, and were made as interesting as possible; we learned to go blocks out of our way to find out what Graham and Duncan were exploiting to-day. And daily bargain sales were instituted--low-priced articles of everyday use, such as shaving soap, tooth brushes, and the like, being sold at a few cents above cost on certain days which were announced in advance by means of hand-lettered cards in the show-windows; whereas formerly we had always been obliged to pay full list-prices. An axiom of his creed as it developed was to the effect that stock must not be allowed to stand idle upon the shelves; if there were no call for a certain line of articles, it must be stimulated. I remember that, some time along in August, he began to worry about the inactivity in cough-syrups.

"No one wants cough-syrups in summer," he told Graham; "that stuff's been here six weeks and more. It's getting out of training. Needs exercise. Look at this bottle: it says: 'Shake well.' Now it hasn't been shaken at all since it was put on the shelves, and I haven't got time to shake it every morning. We must either hire a boy to give it regular exercise, or sell it off and get in a fresh supply for the winter. I'll have to think up some scheme to make 'em take it off our hands."

He did. Somehow or other he managed to convince us that forewarned was forearmed, that it was better to have a bottle or two of cough-syrup in our medicine chests at home than on the shelves of the drug-store, when the chill autumnal winds began to blow, especially when you could buy it now for thirty-nine cents, whereas it would be fifty-four in October.

Still earlier in his career as a business man he noticed that the local practitioners wrote their prescriptions on odd scraps of paper.

"That's all wrong," he declared. "We'll have to fix it." And by next morning the job-printing press back of the Court House was groaning under an order from Graham and Duncan's, and a few days later every physician within several miles of Radville received half a dozen neat pads of blanks with his name and address printed at the top and the advice across the bottom: "Go to Graham's for the best and purest drugs and chemicals." The backs of the blanks were utilised to request people living out of reach, but on rural free delivery routes, either to mail their prescriptions and other orders in, or have the physicians telephone them, promising to fill and despatch them by the first post.

For he had a telephone installed within the first fortnight, and the next day advertised in the _Gazette_ that orders by telephone would receive prompt attention and be delivered without delay. Tracey Tanner became his delivery-boy, deserting his father's stables for the obvious advantages of three dollars a week with a chance to learn the business.... Sothern and Lee were quick to recognise the advantage the telephone gave Graham and Duncan, and promptly had one put in their store; but the delay had proven almost fatal: Radville had already got into the habit of telephoning to Graham's for a cake of soap, or whatnot, and it's hard to break a Radville habit.

As business increased and the stock turned itself over at a profit, Duncan began to branch out, to make improvements and introduce new lines of goods. He it was who inoculated Radville with the habit of buying manufactured candies. Up to the time of his advent, we had been accustomed to and content with home-made taffies and fudges--and were, I've no doubt, vastly better off on that account. But Duncan, starting with a line of five- and ten-cent packages of indigestible sweets, in time made arrangements with a big Pittsburgh confectionery concern to ship him a small consignment of pound and half-pound "fancy" boxes of chocolates and bonbons twice a week. And taffy-pulls and fudge parties lapsed into desuetude.

Later, Sperry introduced him to an association of druggists, of which he became a member, for the maintenance and exploitation of the cigar and tobacco trade in connection with the drug business. They installed at Graham's a handsome show-case and fixtures especially for the sale and display of cigars, and thereafter it was possible to purchase smokable tobacco in our town.

Again, he treated Radville to its first circulating library, establishing a branch in the store. One could buy a book at a moderate price, and either keep it or exchange it for a fee of a few cents. I disputed the wisdom of this move, alleging, and with reason, that Radville didn't read modern fiction to any extent. But Duncan argued that it didn't matter. "They're going to try it on as a novelty, to begin with," he said, "and it'll bring 'em into the store for a few exchanges, at least. That's all I want. Once we get 'em in here, it'll be hard if we can't sell them something else. You'll see."

He was right.

Undoubtedly he made the business hum during those first few months; and after that it settled down to a steady forward movement. The store became a social centre, a place for people to meet. In time Tracey was promoted to be assistant and another boy engaged to make deliveries. ... And Duncan had never been happier; he had found something he could understand and, understanding, accomplish; there was work for his hands to do, and they had discovered they could do it successfully. I don't believe he stopped to think about it very much, but he was conscious of that glow of achievement, that heightening of the spirits, that comes with the knowledge of success, be that success however insignificant, and it benefited him enormously....

But this chronicle of progress has run away altogether with a desultory pen, which started to tell why Duncan didn't want to go to Josie Lockwood's party. I was long in finding out, but not so long as Duncan himself, perhaps; by which I mean to say that he was conscious of the desire not to go, and determined not to, without stopping to analyse the cause of that desire more than very superficially.

It happened, toward the close of the eventful day already detailed at such length, that as Duncan was entering the house with a load of boxed goods, he heard voices in the store--young voices, of which one was already too familiar to his ears. He paused, waiting for them to get through with their business and go; for he had no time to waste just then, even upon the heiress of his manufactured destiny. Betty was keeping shop at the time (old Sam having gone upstairs for a little rest, who was overwrought and weary with the excitement of that day) and it was Duncan's hope that she would be able to serve the customers without his assistance.

There were two of them, you see--Josie and Angle Tuthill--hunting as usual in couples; and while he waited, not meaning to eavesdrop but unwilling to betray his whereabouts by moving, he heard very clearly their passage with Betty.

He overheard first, distinctly, Betty responding in expressionless voice: "Hello, Angie.... Hello, Josie."

There ensued what seemed a slightly awkward pause. Then Josie, painfully sweet: "Did you get the invitation, Betty?"

Betty moved into Duncan's range of vision, apparently intending to come and call him. She turned at the question, and he saw her small, thin little body and pinched face _en silhouette_ against the fading light beyond. He saw, too, that she was stiffening herself as if for some unequal contest.

"The invitation?" she questioned dully, but with her head up and steady.

"Why," said Josie, "I sent you one. To the party, you know--my lawn feet next week."

I give the local pronunciation as it is.

"Did you?"

"I gave it to Tracey for you," persisted the tormentor. "Didn't you get it?"

Betty caught at her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little spasm of mortification and anger that shook her.

"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I--I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait on you."

She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure. And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob.

He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour.

"Well!... _did_ you ever!"

That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect from that kind of a girl?"

"_Ssh!_ maybe he's coming!"

After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner, anyway."

"And, besides, we only wanted to hear--"

Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he had brought in.

While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just as Betty came downstairs.

"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?"

"Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket one of the oil lamps.

"Hardly," he responded, touching a light to the wick and replacing the chimney. "It's a good deal of a job."

"Yes..."

He replaced the lamp, and in the act of turning toward another caught a glimpse of the girl's face, pale and drawn, her eyes a trifle reddened. And with that commonsense departed from him, leaving him wholly a prey to his impulse of pity. "Oh, thunder!" he told himself, thrusting a hand into his pocket. "I might as well be broke as the way I am now." He produced the scanty remains of his "grubstake."

"Miss Graham..."

"Yes?" she asked, wondering.

"Could you get a party dress for thirty-four dollars?"

"Thirty-four dollars!" she faltered.

He discovered what small change he had in his pocket: it was like him to be extravagant, even extreme. "And fifty-three cents?" he pursued, with a nervous laugh.

"Heavens!" the girl gasped. "I should think so!"

"Then go ahead!" He offered her the money, but she could only stare, incredulous. "I'll stake you."

"Oh..._no_, Mr. Duncan," she managed to say.

"Oh, yes!" He tried to catch one of the hands that involuntarily had risen toward her face in a gesture of wonder. "Please do," he begged, his tone persuasive, "as a favour to me."

But she evaded him, stepping back. "I couldn't take it; I couldn't really."

"Yes, you can. Just try it once, and see how easy it is," he persisted, pursuing.

"No, I can't." She looked up shyly and shook her head, that smile of her mother's for the moment illuminating her face almost with the radiance of beauty. "But I--I thank you very much--just the same."

"But I want you to go to that party..."

"You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care to go, now. I--"

"Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago."

"Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be out of place there."

"Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck.

"Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they belong...."

She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied.

"You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity of an original philosopher.

XV

MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE

Nat didn't go to the Lockwood lawn fete, and did excuse himself on the plea of being unable to leave the store. I'm afraid the young man had a faint, fond hope that Josie would be offended; but his excuse was accepted without remonstrance. And, indeed, it was at that time quite a reasonable one. Tracey had not been added to the staff, although business was booming, and Saturday night is, as everyone who has lived in a Radville knows, the busiest of the week; all the stores keep open late on Saturday--some as late as eleven--and frequently take in half the week's income between noon and the closing hour. Duncan really couldn't be spared; so it's probable that Josie cloaked her disappointment and comforted herself with the assurance that her selection of the day had been an error in judgment, of which she would not again be guilty.

But the party came off, without fail, and that on a wonderful, still, moonlit night; and everybody voted it a splendid success. The _Citizen_ in its next issue recorded the event to the extent of a column and a half of reading matter, called it a social function, and described the gowns of the leading ladies of society present in bewildering phrases. I was not invited, but the owner of the paper was, and his wife wrote the description with the assistance of the entire editorial and reportorial force, a dictionary and some evil if suppressed language from the foreman of the composing-room. I read the proofs with an admiration strongly tinctured with awe, and found it lacking in one particular only: no mention was made of Roland Barnette's first open-faced suit.

Roland had ordered it from a clothing-house in Chicago, and it arrived just in time. Having heard all about it from Roland's own lips (they dilated upon the matter to Watty the tailor, just beneath my window), I sort of hung round downtown Saturday evening in the hope of catching a glimpse of it, and was not disappointed. I was loitering in Graham's when Roland sauntered nonchalantly in at about a quarter to eight and called for a pack of "Sweets." Sam served him, and Duncan, happily for him disengaged at the moment, after one look at Roland retired precipitately behind the prescription counter--overcome, I judged from Roland's triumphant smirk, by deepest chagrin. Well, thought I, might he have been: he could never, by whatever wildest endeavour, have approximated Roland's splendour.

The coat was bob-tailed (at least, so Watty described it within my hearing) and curiously double-breasted, caught together at the waist with a single button, thus revealing a shining expanse of very stiff shirt-bosom; which creaked, for some reason. With this Roland wore a ribbed white-silk waistcoat, very brilliant low-cut patent leather shoes, and white-silk socks. The trousers were strikingly cut, as to each leg, after the physical configuration of the domestic pear, and the effect of the whole was measurably enhanced by an opera-hat--one of those tall and striking contraptions that you can shut up by pressing gently but firmly upon the human midriff and looking unconscious, but which is apt to open with a resounding report if you're not careful... I am glad to be able to report that Roland failed to commit the solecism of wearing a red string tie; his tie was a sober black, firmly knotted at the factory. I'm glad too, for the sartorial honour of Radville, that Roland knew how to wear such fixin's: that is to say, with an expression of proud defiance.

After he had departed, stepping high, Sam called me behind the counter to assist in reviving Duncan. We found him leaning upon the counter, his forehead resting upon a mortar, very red in the face and breathing stertorously; and when Sam addressed him, to learn what was the matter, he seemed unable to speak, but choked and beat the air feebly with his hands. Sam concluded he had swallowed something, and was, I think, right; he was plainly half strangled, and only recovered after we had beaten his back severely. Then he refused any explanation, beyond saying that he was subject to such seizures.

After the party the town's excitement simmered down and subsided; we had become moderately accustomed to the presence of Duncan in our midst (strange as this may sound), and for some time nothing happened germane to the fate of the Fortune Hunter.

On his part, he fell into a routine without the least evidence of discontent. He was early to rise and early to work, and rarely left the store save at meal hours and closing-up time. And in the course of our serene days, I began to notice in him an increasing interest in the affairs of the church; he seemed to look forward with a not uneager anticipation to the fixtures of its calendar. He attended with admirable regularity both morning and evening services, on Sunday, the mid-weekly prayer-meeting, and Friday evening choir practice. For in the course of time he had been won over to join the choir, and modestly discovered to our edification a barytone voice, wholly untrained but not unpleasing. Mrs. Rogers, our organist, averred his superiority to Packy Soule, whom he superseded, and was supported in this estimate by the remainder of the choir, with the exception of Roland Barnette, who helped with his reedy tenor. Josie Lockwood sang contralto and Bess Gabriel what we were informed was soprano--only Radville called it a treble. Tracey Tanner pumped the organ and puffed audibly in the pauses--a singular testimony to his devotion to Angie Tuthill, who "just sang" with the others, chiefly because she was Josie's nearest friend.

I remember that, one Sunday night after evening service, Duncan confided to me, quite seriously, "that the church thing was getting to him." He seemed somewhat surprised, to a degree indignant, as if he suspected religion of having taken an advantage of him in some roundabout, underhand way.... He wondered audibly what Harry would think if he could see him now.