He strode up to the milkman and stood dramatically before him, arm raised and head thrown back. "Now, look at here," he proclaimed, in a high falsetto, "I ain't agoin' to hear no asparagusment of my friends, not here in this tonsorial parlor. No, sir!" There was something at once touching, n.o.ble, and absurd about the demonstration. The others chuckled, then sobered, and watched.

Tappan stared at him a second incredulously. Then he grinned, showing his teeth like a dog.

"Lord! then that jailbird is one of your friends, is he?" he said. He had just lit his pipe. He puffed at it, and deliberately blew the smoke into the little barber's face.

Flynn bent over towards him with a sudden motion, and his mild, consequential face in the cloud of smoke changed into something terrible, from its very absurdity. His blue eyes glittered greenly; he lifted the razor and cut the air with it close to the other man's face. Tappan heard the hiss of it, and drew back involuntarily, his expression changing.

"What the devil are you up to?" he growled, with wary eyes on the other's face.

The barber continued to hold the razor like a bayonet in rest, fixed within an inch of the other's nose. "I'm up to kickin' you out of my parlor if you don't stop speakin' individuously disregardin' my friends," said he, with an emphasis which was ridiculous and yet impressive. The other men chuckled again, then grew grave.

"Come back here and finish up my job, John," Amidon called out; yet he watched him warily.

"Here, put up that razor!" the postmaster called out.

"I'll put it up when you stop speakin' mellifluously of my friends,"

declared the barber. "There ain't n.o.body in this parlor goin' to speak a word against Captain Carroll if I'm in hearin'; there ain't an honester man in this town."

The barber's back was towards the door. Suddenly Tappan's eyes stared past him, his grin widened inexplicably. Flynn became aware of a pregnant silence throughout the shop. He turned, following Tappan's gaze, and Arthur Carroll stood there. He had entered silently and had heard all the last of the discussion. Every face in the shop was turned towards him; he stood looking at them with the curious expression of a man taken completely off guard. All the serene force and courtesy which usually masked his innermost emotions had, as it were, slipped off; for a flash he stood revealed, soul-naked, for any one who could see. None there could fully see, although every man looked, sharpened with curiosity and suspicion. Carroll was white and haggard, unsmiling, despairing, even pathetic; his eyes actually looked suffused. Then in a flash it was over, and Arthur Carroll in his usual guise stood before them--it was like one of those metamorphoses of which one reads in fairy tales. Carroll stood there smiling, stately, gracefully, even confidentially condescending. It was as if he appealed to their sense of humor, that he, Carroll, stood among them addressing them as their equals.

"Good-day, gentleman," he said, and came forward.

Little w.i.l.l.y Eddy sprang up with a frightened look and gave him his chair, murmuring in response to Carroll's deprecating thanks that he was just going; but he did not go. He remained in the doorway staring. He had a vague idea of some judgment descending upon them all from this great man whom they had been slandering.

"Well, how are you, captain?" said Lee, speaking with an air of defiant importance. It became evident that what had gone before was to be ignored by everybody except Tappan, who suddenly rose and went out, muttering something which n.o.body heard. Then the lash of a whip was heard outside, a "g'lang," with the impetus of an oath, and a milk wagon clattered down the street.

Carroll replied to Lee, urbanely: "Fine," he said, "fine. How are you, Mr. Lee?"

"Seems to me you are not looking quite up to the mark," Lee remarked, surveying him with friendly solicitude.

The little barber had returned to Amidon in the chair, and was carefully sc.r.a.ping his cheek with the razor.

"Then my looks belie me," Carroll replied, smiling. He offered a cigar to Lee and to the druggist, who sat next on the other side.

"Been out of town?" asked the druggist.

"Yes," replied Carroll.

Drake looked at him hesitatingly, but Amidon, speaking stiffly and cautiously, put the question directly: "Where you been, cap'n?"

"A little journey on business," Carroll answered, easily, lighting his cigar.

"When did you get home?" asked Amidon.

"This morning."

"You certainly look as if you had lost flesh," said Lee, with obsequious solicitude.

"Well, it is a hard journey to Chicago--quite a hard journey,"

remarked the druggist, with cunning.

"Not on the fast train," said Carroll.

"So you went on the flyer?" said the postmaster.

Carroll was having some difficulty in lighting his cigar, and did not reply.

"Did you go on the flyer?" persisted the postmaster.

"No, I did not," replied Carroll, with unmistakable curtness.

The postmaster hemmed to conceal embarra.s.sment. He had been shaved and had only lingered for a bit of gossip, and now the church-bells began to ring, and he was going to church, as were also Lee, the druggist, and most of the others. They rose and lounged out, one after another; little w.i.l.l.y Eddy followed them. Flynn finished shaving Amidon, who also left, and finally he was left alone in the shop with Carroll, who arose and approached the chair.

"Sorry to keep you waitin', Captain Carroll," said Flynn, preparing a lather with enthusiasm.

"The day is before me," said Carroll, as he seated himself.

"I hope," said Flynn, beating away his hand in a bowl of mounting rainbow bubbles--"I hope that--that--your feelings were not hurt at--at--our eavesdropping."

"At what?" asked Carroll, kindly and soberly.

"At our eavesdropping," reported the barber, with a worshipful and agitated glance at him.

"Oh!" answered Carroll, but he did not smile. "No," he said, "my feelings were not hurt." He looked at the small man who was the b.u.t.t of the town, and his expression was almost caressing.

Flynn continued to beat away at the lather, and the rainbow bubbles curled over the edge of the bowl. "You said that you would devise me when the time had come for me to invest that money," he said, diffidently, and yet with a n.o.ble air of confidence and loyalty.

"It hasn't come yet," Carroll replied.

Chapter XIX

As Ina Carroll's wedding-day drew nearer, the excitement in Banbridge increased. It was known that the services of a New York caterer had been engaged. Blumenfeldt was decorating the church, Samson Rawdy was furbishing up all his vehicles and had hired supplementary ones from New Sanderson.

"No girl has ever went from this town as that Carroll girl will," he told his wife, who a.s.sisted him to clean the carriage cushions.

"I s'pose the folks will dress a good deal," said she, brushing a.s.siduously.

"You bet," said her husband.

"Well, they won't get no dirt on their fine duds off _your_ carriage-seats," said she. She was large and perspiring, but full of the content of righteous zeal. She and Samson Rawdy thoroughly enjoyed the occasion, and he was, moreover, quite free from any money anxiety regarding it. At first he had been considerably exercised. He had come home and conferred with his wife, who was the business balance-wheel of the family.

"Carroll has been speakin' to me about providin' carriages for his daughter's weddin', an' I dunno about it," said he.

"How many does he want?" inquired his wife. He had sunk on his doorstep on coming home at dusk, and sat with speculative eyes on the pale western sky, while his wife sat judicially, quite filling with her heated bulk a large rocking-chair, placed for greater coolness in front of the step, in the middle of the slate walk.

"He wants all mine and all I can hire in New Sanderson," replied Rawdy.