V

There were two methods of communication in Cove City, both of which were equally effective. One was the telephone, which from a single, isolated case had developed into an epidemic, and the other, which enjoyed the dignity of precedence and established custom, was to tell Jimmy Fallows.

Both of these currents of information soon overflowed with the news that Mr. D. Webster Opp had given up a good position in the city, and expected to establish himself in business in his native town. The nature of this business was agitating the community at large in only a degree less than it was agitating Mr. Opp himself.

One afternoon Jimmy Fallows stood with his back to his front gate, suspended by his armpits from the pickets, and conducted business after his usual fashion. As a general retires to a hill-top to organize his forces and issue orders to his subordinates, so Jimmy hung upon his front fence and conducted the affairs of the town. He knew what time each farmer came in, where the "Helping Hands" were going to sew, where the doctor was, and where the services would be held next Sunday. He was coroner, wharf-master, undertaker, and notary, and the only thing in the heavens above or the earth below concerning which he did not attempt to give information was the arrival of the next steamboat.

As he stood whittling a stick and cheerfully humming a tune of other days, he descried a small, alert figure coming up the road. The pace was so much brisker than the ordinary slow gait of the Cove that he recognized the person at once as Mr. Opp. Whereupon he lifted his voice and hailed a boy who was just vanishing down the street in the opposite direction:

"Nick!" he called. "Aw, Nick Fenny! Tell Mat Lucas that Mr. Opp's uptown."

Connection being thus made at one end of the line, he turned to effect it at the other. "Howdy, Brother Opp. Kinder dusty on the river, ain't it?"

"Well, we _are_ experiencing considerable of warm weather at this juncture," said Mr. Opp, affably.

"Mat Lucas has been hanging round here all day," said Jimmy. "He wants you to buy out a half-interest in his dry-goods store. What do you think about it?"

"Well," said Mr. Opp, thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, "I am considering of a great variety of different things. I been in the dry-goods business twice, and I can't say but what it ain't a pretty business. Of course," he added with a twinge, "my specialty are shoes."

"Yes," said Jimmy; "but the folks here all gets their shoes at the drug store. Mr. Toddlinger's been carrying a line of shoes along with his pills and plasters ever sence he went into business."

Mr. Opp looked up at the large sign overhead. "If you and Mr. Tucker wasn't both in the hotel business, I might be thinking of considering that."

This proposition tickled Jimmy immensely. Chuckles of amus.e.m.e.nt agitated his rotund figure.

"Why don't you buy us both out?" he asked. "We could sell out for nothing and make money."

"Why, there's three boarders sitting over at Our Hotel now," said Mr.

Opp, who rather fancied himself in the role of a genial host.

"Yes," said Jimmy. "Old man Tucker's had 'em hanging out on the line all morning. I don't guess they got strength enough to walk around much after the meals he give 'em."

"Of course," said Mr. Opp, wholly absorbed in his own affairs, "this is just temporarily for the time being, as it were. In a year or so, when my financial condition is sorter more established in a way, I intend to put through that oil-wells proposition. The fact that I am aiming at arriving to is what would you think the Cove was at present most in need of?"

"Elbow-grease," said Jimmy, promptly. "The only two things that we ain't got that a city has, is elbow-grease and a newspaper."

For a moment there was a silence, heavy with significance. Mr. Fallows's gaze penetrated the earth, while Mr. Opp's scanned the heavens; then they suddenly looked at each other, and the great idea was born.

An editor! Mr. Opp's whole being thrilled responsive to the call. The thought of dwelling above the sordid bartering of commercial life, of being in a position to exercise those mental powers with which he felt himself so generously endowed, almost swept him off his feet. He had been a reporter once; for two golden weeks he had handed in police-court reports that fairly scintillated with verbal gems plucked at random from the dictionary. But the city editor had indicated as kindly as possible that his services were no longer required, vaguely suggesting that it was necessary to reduce the force; and Mr. Opp had a.s.sured him that he understood perfectly, and that he was ready to return at any future time. That apprenticeship, brief though it was, served as a foundation upon which Mr. Opp erected a tower of dazzling possibilities.

"What's the matter with you takin' Mr. Gusty's old printin'-shop and startin' up business for yourself?" asked Jimmy.

"Do you reckon she'd sell it?" asked Mr. Opp, anxiously.

"Sell it?" said Jimmy. "Why, she's 'most ready to give it away to keep from having to pay Pete Aker's rent for the shop. Say--Mr. Gall--up," he called up the street to a man who was turning the corner, "is Mrs. Gusty at home?"

The man, thus accosted, turned and came toward them.

"Who is Mr. Gallop?" asked Mr. Opp.

"He's the new telephone girl," said Jimmy, with relish; "ain't been here but a month, and he's doing the largest and most profitable trade in tending to other folks's business you ever seen. Soft! Why, he must 'a'

been raised on a pillow--He always puts me in mind of a highly educated pig: it sorter surprises and tickles you to see him walkin' round on his hind legs and talking like other people. Other day one of the boys, just to devil him, ast him to drive his team out home. I liked to 'a' died when I seen him tryin' to turn the corner, pullin' 'Gee' and hollerin'

'Haw' with every breath. Old mules got their legs in a hard knot trying to do both at once, and the boys says when Gallop got out in the country he felt so bad about it he got down and 'pologized to the mules. How 'bout that, Gallop--did you!" he concluded as the subject of the conversation arrived upon the scene.

The new-comer, a plump, fair young man, who held one hand clasped affectionately in the other, blushed indignantly, but said nothing.

"This here is Mr. Opp," went on Jimmy; "he wants to see Mrs. Gusty. Do you know whether he will ketch her at home or not?"

Mr. Gallop was by this time paying the tribute of many an admiring glance to every detail of Mr. Opp's costume, and Mr. Opp, realizing this, a.s.sumed an air of cosmopolitan nonchalance, and toyed indifferently with his large watch-fob.

When Mr. Gallop's admiration and attention had become focused upon Mr.

Opp's ring, he suddenly turned on the faucet of his conversation, and allowed such a stream of general information to pour forth that Mr. Opp quite forgot to look imposing.

"Mrs. Gusty telephoned early this morning to Mrs. Dorsey that she would come over and help her make preserves. Mrs. Dorsey got a big load of peaches from her father across the river. He's been down with the asthma, and had to call up the doctor twice in the night. And the doctor couldn't get the right medicine in town, and had me call up the city.

They are going to send it down on the _Big Sandy_, but she's stuck in the locks, and goodness knows when she'll get here. She's--"

"Excuse me," interrupted Mr. Opp, politely but firmly, "I've got to see Mrs. Gusty on very important business. Have you any idea whatsoever of when she will return back home?"

"Yes," said Mr. Gallop, eager to oblige. "She's about home by this time.

Miss Lou Diker is making her a dress, and she telephoned she'd be by to try it on 'bout four o'clock. I'll go up there with you, if you want me to."

"Why don't you drive him!" suggested Jimmy. "You can borrow a pair of mules acrost the street."

"Mr. Opp," said Mr. Gallop, feelingly, as they walked up Main Street, "I wouldn't treat a' insect like he treats me."

"Oh, you mustn't mind Jimmy," said Mr. Opp, kindly; "he always sort of enjoys a little joke as he goes along. Why, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he even made a joke on me sometime. How long have you been in Cove City?"

"Just a month," said Mr. Gallop. "It must look awful little to you, after all the big cities you been used to."

Mr. Opp lengthened his stride. "Yes," he said largely; "quite small, quite little, in fact. No place for a business man; but for a professional man, a man that requires leisure to sort of cultivate his brain and that means to be a influence in the community, it's a good place, a remarkably good place."

A hint, however vague, dropped into the mind of Mr. Gallop, caused instant fermentation. From long experience he had become an adept at extracting information from all who crossed his path. A preliminary interest, a breath or two of flattery by way of anesthetic, and his victim's secret was out before he knew it.

"Reckon you are going up to talk insurance to Mrs. Gusty," he ventured tentatively.

"No; oh, no," said Mr. Opp. "I formerly was in the insurance business, some time back. Very little prospects in it for a man of my nature. I have to have a chance to sorter spread out, you know--to use my own particular ideas about working things out."

"What is your especial line?" asked Mr. Gallop, deferentially.

"Shoe--" Mr. Opp began involuntarily, then checked himself--"journalism," he said, and the word seemed for the moment completely to fill s.p.a.ce.

At Mrs. Gusty's gate Mr. Gallop stopped.

"I guess I ought to go back now," he said regretfully; "the telephone and telegraph office is right there in my room, and I never leave them day or night except just this one hour in the afternoon. It's awful trying. The farmers begin calling each other up at three o'clock in the morning. Say, I wish you'd step in sometime. I'd just love to have you.

But you are so busy and got so many friends, you won't have much time for me, I guess."

Mr. Opp thought otherwise. He said that no matter how pressed he was by various important duties, he was never too busy to see a friend. And he said it with the air of one who confers a favor, and Mr. Gallop received it as one who receives a favor, and they shook hands warmly and parted.