"Oh, but Lobel," countered Geltfin, "remember you was the one that made 'em burn up the negative without giving it a look at all!"

"He said it, Lobel!" reenforced Quinlan. "You was the one that just would have the negative burned up whether or no. And now it's burned up!"

Mr. Lobel was not used to being bullied in his own office or elsewhere.

If there was bullying to be done by anyone, he was his own candidate always. Surcharged with distracting regrets as he was, he had an inspiration. He would turn the flood of accusation away from himself.

"Where is that Josephson?" he whooped. "He is the one actually to blame, not us. Let me get my hands on that Josephson once!"

"You can't!" jeered Quinlan. "He's quit--he's gone--he's beat it! He wrote me a note, though, and mailed it back to me when he was beating it out of town, telling me to tell you how slick he'd worked it on you." He felt in his pockets. "I got that note here somewhere--here it is. I'll read it to you, Lobel--he calls you an old scoundrel in one place and an old sucker in another."

"Look out--catch him, Quinlan!" cried Mr. Geltfin. "Look at his face--he's fixing to faint or something."

The prime intent of this recital, as set forth at the beginning, was to tell why Mr. Max Lobel had an attack of apoplexy. That original purpose having been now carried out, there remains nothing more to be added and the chapter ends.

CHAPTER VIII

ALAS, THE POOR WHIFFLEt.i.t!

Over Jefferson Poindexter's usually buoyant spirits a fabric of gloom, black, thick, and heavy, was spread like a burying-pall. His thoughts were the color of twelve o'clock at night at the bottom of a coal-mine and it the dark of the moon. Moroseness crowned his brow; sorrow berode his soul, and on his under lip the bull-bat, that eccentric bird which has to sit lengthwise of the limb, might have perched with room to spare. You couldn't see the ointment for the flies, and Gilead had gone out of the balm business. There was a reason. The reason was Ophelia Stubblefield.

On an upturned watering-piggin alongside Mittie May's stall in the stable back of the house, Jeff sat and just naturally gloomed. To this retreat he had been harried against his will. Out of her domain, which was the kitchen, Aunt Dilsey had driven him with words barbed and bitter.

"Tek yo'se'f on 'way f'um yere, black boy!" Such had been her command.

"Me, I's plum distracted an' wore out jes' f'um lookin' at you settin'

'round sullin' lak a' ole possum. Ef Satan fine some labor still fur idle hands to do, same ez de Holy Word say he do, he suttinly must be stedyin' 'bout openin' up a branch employmint agency fur cullid only, 'specially on yore account. You ain't de Grand President of de Order of de Folded Laigs, tho' you sh.o.r.ely does ack lak it. You's s'posed to be doin' somethin' fur yore keep an' wages. H'ist yo'se'f an' move."

"I ain't doin' nothin'!" Jeff protested spiritlessly.

"Dat you ain't!" agreed Aunt Dilsey. "An' whut you better do is better do somethin'--tha's my edvices to you. S'posin' ole boss-man came back yere to dis kitchen an' ketch you 'c.u.mberin' de earth de way you is. You knows, well ez I does, w'ite folks suttinly does hate to see a strappin'

n.i.g.g.e.r settin' 'round doin' nothin'."

"Boss-man ain't yere," said Jeff. "He's up at the cote-house. Mos'

doubtless jes' about right now he's sendin' some flippy cullid woman to the big jail fur six months fur talkin' too much 'bout whut don't concern her."

"Is tha' so?" she countered. "Well, ef he should come back home he'll find one of de most fragrant cases of vagromcy he ever run acrost right yere 'pon his own household premises. Boy, is you goin' move, lak I patiently is warned you, or ain't you? Git on out yander to de stable an' confide yo' sorrows to de Jedge's old mare. Mebbe she mout be able to endure you, but you p'intedly gives me de fidgits. Git--befo' I starts findin' out ef dat flat haid of yourn fits up smooth ag'inst de back side of a skillit."

Nervously she fingered the handle of her largest frying-pan. Jeff knew the danger-signals. Too deeply sunken in melancholy to venture any further retorts, he withdrew himself, seeking sanctuary in the lee of Mittie May. He squatted upon the capsized keeler, automatically balancing himself as it wabbled under him on its one projecting handle, and, with his eyes fixed on nothing, gave himself over unreservedly to a consuming canker. For all that unhappiness calked his ears as with pledgets of cotton wool, there presently percolated to his aloof understanding the consciousness that somebody was speaking on the other side of the high board fence which marked the dividing line between Judge Priest's place and the Enders' place next door. Listlessly he identified the voice as the property of the young gentleman from up North who was staying with his kinsfolk, the Enders family. This was a gentleman already deeply admired by Jeff at long distance for the sprightliness of his wardrobe and for his gay and gallus ways. Against his will--for he craved to be quite alone with his griefs and no distracting influences creeping in--Jeff listened. Listening, he heard language of such splendor as literally to force him to rise up and approach the fence and apply his eye to a convenient cranny between two whitewashed boards.

Under an Injun-cigar tree which grew in the Enders' back yard the fascinating visitor out of Northern parts was stretched in a hammock, between draws on a cigarette discoursing grandiloquently to a half-incredulous but wholly delighted audience of three. His three small nephews were hunkered on the earth beside him, their grinning faces upturned to his the while he dealt first with this and then with that variety of curious fauna which, he alleged, were to be encountered in the wilds of a strange place called the State of Rhode Island, where, it seemed, he had spent the greater part of an adventurous and crowded youth.

"Well," he was saying now, beginning, as it were, a new chapter, "if you think the sulfur-crested parabola is a funny bird you should hear about the great flannel-throated golosh, or arctic bird of the polar seas, which is a creature so rare that n.o.body ever saw one, although Dr. Cook, the imminent ex-explorer, made an exhaustive study of its habits and peculiarities and told the King of Denmark about them, afterward amplifying his remarks on the subject in the lecture which he delivered in this, his native land, under the auspices of the International School of Poor Fish. By the way, I'm sure the Doctor must have visited this town on his tour. Only yesterday, I think it was, I saw an illuminated sign down on Franklin Street which surely was used originally to advertise his lecture. It was a sign which said, 'Cook With Gas!' But speaking of fish, I am reminded of the fur-bearing whifflet.i.t; only some authorities say the whifflet.i.t is not a fish at all, but a subspecies of the wampus family. Now, the wampus--"

"Say, tell us about the whifflet.i.t next," begged one wriggling youngster, plainly allured by the sound of the name.

"With pleasure," said the speaker. "The whifflet.i.t is found only in streams running in a south-northerly direction. This is because the whifflet.i.t, being a sensitive creature with poor vision, insists on having the light falling over its left shoulder at all times. A creek, river, inlet, or estuary which has a wide mouth and a narrow head, such as a professional after-dinner speaker has, is a favorite haunt for the whifflet.i.t. To the naturalist it is a constant source of joy. It always swims backward upstream, to keep the water out of its eyes, and it has only one fin, which grows just under its chin, so that the whifflet.i.t can fan itself in warm weather, thus keeping cool, calm, and collected.

Most marvelous thing of all about this marvelous creature is its diet.

For the whifflet.i.t, my dear young friends, lives exclusively on imported Brie cheese.

"Did I say exclusively? Ah, there I fell into error. It has been known to nibble at a chiropodist's finger, but it prefers imported Brie cheese, aged in the wood. The mode employed in catching it is very interesting, and I shall now describe it to you. Selecting a body of water wherein the whifflet.i.t resides, you enter a round-bottomed boat and row out to the middle of it. Then you take a square timber, and, driving it into the water, withdraw it very swiftly so as to leave a square hole in the water. Care should be taken to use a perfectly square timber because the whifflet.i.t being, as I forgot to tell you, shaped like a brick, cannot move up and down a round hole without barking its shins, much to the discomfort of the pretty creature.

"Pray follow me closely now, for at this juncture we come to the most important phase of the undertaking. You bait the edges of the hole with the cheese cut in small cubes and quietly await results. Nor do you have long to wait. Far down below in his watery retreat the whifflet.i.t catches the alluring aroma of the cheese. He swims to the surface and devours it to the last crumb. But alas for the greedy whifflet.i.t!

Instantly the cheese swells him up so that he cannot change gears nor retreat back down the hole, and as he circles about, flapping helplessly, you lean over the side of the boat and laugh him to death!

And such, my young friends, such is the fate of the whifflet.i.t."

"'Scuse me, suh."

The amateur aspirant for the robe of Munchausen paused from lighting a fresh cigarette and lifted his eyes, and was aware of an anthracite-colored face risen, like some new kind of crayoned full moon, above the white skyline of the side fence.

"'Scuse me, suh, fur interruptin'," repeated the voice belonging to the apparition, "but I couldn't he'p frum overhearin' whut you wuz tellin'

the boys yere. An' I got sort of interested myse'f."

"It's Judge Priest's Jeff, Uncle Dwight," explained the oldest nephew.

"Jeff makes us fluttermills out of corn-stalks, and he learned us--taught us, I mean--to call a brickbat an alley-apple, and he can make his ears wiggle just like a rabbit and everything. Don't you, Jeff?--I mean, can't you, Jeff?"

"Ah, I see," said the fabulist with a wink aside for Jeff's benefit. "I am indeed delighted to make the acquaintance of one thus gifted, even under the present informal circ.u.mstances. In what way, if any, may I be of service to you, Judge Priest's Jeff?"

"That air thing you named the whifflet.i.t--near ez I made out you said, boss, that fust you tolled him up to whar you wanted him wid cheese an'

'en you jest natch.e.l.ly laffed him to death?"

"Such are the correct facts accurately repeated, Judge Priest's Jeff,"

gravely a.s.sented this affable faunalist.

"Yas, suh," said Jeff. "D'ye s'pose now, boss, it would he'p any ef they wuz a whole pa.s.sel of folks to do the laffin' 'stid of jes' one?"

"Beyond the peradventure of a doubt. Concerted action on the part of many, guffawing merrily in chorus, a.s.suredly would hasten the death of the ill-starred victim, if you get what I mean, Judge Priest's most estimable Jeff?"

"Yas, suh," said Jeff. "Thanky, suh." He did not exactly smile his thanks, but the mask of his melancholy crinkled round the edges and raised slightly. One who knew Jeff, and more particularly one who had been cognizant of his depressed state during the past fortnight, would have said that a heartening thought suddenly had come to him, lightening and lifting in ever so small a degree the funereal mantlings. He made as though to withdraw from sight. A gesture from the visiting naturalist detained him.

"One moment," said Uncle Dwight. "Might I, a comparative stranger, be pardoned for inquiring into the motives underlying the interest you have evinced in my perhaps poorly expressed but veracious narration?"

The wraith of Jeff's grin took on flesh visibly. It was a pleasure--even to one beset by grievous perplexities--it was a pleasure to hear such n.o.ble big words fall thus trippingly from human lips. His answer, tho, was in a measure evasive, not to say cryptic.

"I wuz jes' stedyin', tha's all, suh," he fenced. He ducked from view, then bobbed his head up again.

"'Scuse me, suh, but they is one mo' thing I craves to ast you."

"Proceed, I pray you. Our aim is to please and instruct."

"Well, suh, I jes' wanted to ast you ef you ever run acrost one of these yere whifflet.i.ts w'ich played on the jazzin'-valve?"

"Prithee?"

"Naw, suh, not the prith--prith--whut you jes' said. I mentioned the jazzin'-valve--whut some folks calls the saxophone. D'ye reckin they mout' 'a' been a whifflet.i.t onct 'at played on one?"