The Fortune Hunter Part 10

Graham's one-horse drug-store stood on Beech, a block south of Main.

That being the least promising location in town for a business of any sort, Sam had naturally selected it when he concluded to set up shop.

If Sam had ever in his life displayed any symptoms of business sagacity, Radville would never have recovered from the shock. I believe it was Legrand Gunn, our only really certificated village wit, who coined the epigram: "As useless as to take a prescription to Graham's."

The implication being that Graham didn't carry sufficient stock to fill any prescription; which was largely true; he couldn't; he hadn't the money to stock up with. What little he took in from time to time went in part to the support of Betty and himself, but mainly to pay interest on his debts and buy raw materials for models of his thousand-and-one inventions. Most Radvillians firmly believed that Sam has at some time or other in his busy, worthless career invented everything under the sun, practicable or impracticable--the former always a few days after somebody else had taken out patents for the identical device. But at that time no one believed he would ever make a cent out of any one of the children of his ingenious brain; nor was I, in this respect, more credulous than any of my fellow-townsmen.

I lingered a moment outside the shop, thinking of the change that had come over it since the death of Margaret Graham, Betty's mother. For, despite its out-of-the-way location, the shop had not always been unprofitable; while Margaret lived (my heart still ached with the memory of her name) Sam's business had prospered. She had been one of those woman who can rise to any emergency in the interest of her loved ones; the first to realise Sam's improvidence and lack of executive ability, she had taken hold of the business with a firm hand and made it pay--while she lived. It has never ceased to be a source of wondering speculation to me, that she, with her gentle training, so wholly aloof from every thought of commerce or economy, should have proven herself so thorough and level-headed a business woman. There's no accounting for it, indeed, save on the theory that she conceived it a woman's function to make up for man's deficiencies; Sam needed her, so she become his wife; he needed a manager, so she had became that also....

During Margaret's regime, as I say, the shop had thrived. Sam had few ill-wishers in Radville; the trade came his way. Then Betty was born and Margaret died....

Most of this I have on hearsay. I left Radville shortly after their marriage and did not return until some months after Margaret's burial.

By that time the shop had begun to show signs of neglect; its stock was decimated, its trade likewise. Sam was struggling with his inventions more fiercely than ever--seeking forgetfulness, I always thought. The business was allowed to take care of itself. He had always a serene faith in his tomorrows.

Now the little shop had been far distanced by the compet.i.tion of Sothern and Lee. It was twenty years behind the times, as the saying is. Small, darksome, dreary and dingy, it served chiefly as a living-room for Sam, his daughter, and his cronies, as well as for his workshop. He had a bench and a ramshackle lathe in one corner, where you might be sure to find him futilely pottering at almost any hour. He owned the little building--or that portion in it which it were a farce to term the equity above the mortgage--and Betty kept house for him in three rooms above the store.

I saw nothing of him as I stepped across the street, and was wondering if he were at home when, through the small, dark panes of gla.s.s in his show windows I discerned his white old head bobbing busily over something on the rear counter. I pushed the door open and entered. He looked up with his never-failing smile of welcome and a wave of his hand.

"Howdy, Homer? Come in. Well, well, I'm glad to see you. Sit down--I think that chair there by the stove will hold together under you."

"What are you doing, Sam?" I asked.

"Fixin' up the sody fountain. 'Meant to get it working last month, Homer, but somehow I kind of forgot."

He rubbed away briskly at the single faucet which protruded above the counter, lathering it briskly with a metal polish that smelt to Heaven.

"Do much sody trade, Sam?"

He paused, pa.s.sing his worn old fingers reflectively across a chin snowy with a stubble of neglected beard. "No," he allowed thoughtfully, "not so much as we used to, now that Sothern and Lee've got this new-fangled notion of puttin' ice cream in a nickel gla.s.s of sody. Most of the young folks go there, now, but still I get a call flow and then--and every little bit helps." He rubbed on ferociously for a moment. "'Course, I'd do more, likely, if I carried a bigger line of flavours."

"How many do you carry?"

"One," he admitted with a sigh, "vanilly."

While I filled my pipe he continued to rub very industriously.

"Why don't you get more?"

He flashed me one of his pale, genial smiles. "I'm thinkin' of it, Homer, soon's I get some money in. Next week, mebbe. There's a man in N'York that mebbe can be int'rested in one of my inventions, Roland Barnette says. Mebbe he'd be willin' to put a little money in it, Roland says, and of course if he does, I'll be able to stock up considerable."

I sighed covertly for him. He rubbed, humming a tuneless rhythm to himself.

"Roland's goin' to write to him about it."

"What invention?" I asked, incredulous.

Sam put down his bottle of polish and came round the counter, beaming; nothing pleases him better than an opportunity to exhibit some one of his innumerable models. "I'll show you, Homer," he volunteered cheerfully, shuffling over to his work-bench. He rasped a match over its surface and applied the flame to a small gas-bracket fixed to the wall. A strong rush of gas extinguished the match, and he turned the flow half off before trying again. This time the vapour caught and settled to a steady, brilliant flame as white as and much softer than acetylene.

"There!" he said in triumph. "What d'ye think of that, Homer?"

"Why," I said, "I didn't know you had an acetylene plant."

"No more have I, Homer."

"But what is that, then?" I demanded.

"It's my invention," he returned proudly.

"I've been workin' on it two years, Homer, and only got it goin'

yestiddy. It's going to be a great thing, I tell you."

"But what _is_ it, Sam?"

"It's gas from crude petroleum, Homer. See ..." he continued, indicating a tank beneath the bench which seemed to be connected with the bracket by a very simple system of piping, broken by a smaller, cylindrical tank. "Ye put the oil in there--just crude, as it comes out of the wells, Homer; it don't need refinin'--and it runs through this and down here to this, where it's vaporised--much the same's they vaporise gasoline for autymobile engines, ye know--and then it just naturally flows up to the bracket--and there ye are."

"It's wonderful, Sam," said I, wondering if it really were.

"And the best part of it is the economy, Homer. A gallon will run one jet six weeks, day in and out. And simple to install. I tell ye--"

"Have you got it patented yet?"

"Yes, siree! took out patents just as soon as it struck me how simple it 'ud be--more than two years ago. Only, of course, it took time to work it out just right, 'specially when I had to stop now and then 'cause I needed money for materials. But it's all right now, Homer, it's all right now."

"And you say Roland Barnette's writing to some one in New York about it?"

"Yes; he promised he would. I explained it to Roland and he seemed real int'rested. He's kind, very kind."

I was inclined to doubt this, and would probably have said something to that effect had not a shadow crossing the window brought me to my feet in consternation. But before I could do more than rise, Colonel Bohun had flung open the door and stamped in. He stopped short at sight of me, misguided by his near-sighted eyes, and singled me out with a threatening wave of his heavy stick.

"Well, sir!" he snarled. "I've come for my answer. Have you sense enough in your addled pate to understand that, man? I've come for my answer!"

"And may have it, whatever it may be, for all of me," I told him.

His face flushed a deeper red. "Oh, it's only you, is it, Littlejohn? I took you for that fool Graham, in this d.a.m.ned dark hole. Where is he?"

I looked to Graham and he followed the direction of my gaze to the work-bench, where Sam stood with his back to it, his worn hands folded quietly before him. He seemed a little whiter than usual, I thought; and perhaps it was only my fancy that made him appear to tremble ever so slightly. For he was quite calm and self-possessed--so much so that I realised for the first time there was another man in Radville besides myself who did not fear old Colonel Bohun.

"I'm here, colonel," he said quietly. "What is it you wish?"

The colonel swung on him, shaking with pa.s.sion. But he held his tongue until he had mastered himself somewhat: a feat of self-restraint on his part over which I marvel to this day.

"You know well, Graham," he said presently. "You got my letter--the letter I wrote you a week ago?"

"Yes," said Sam, with a start of comprehension. "Yes, I got it."

"Then why the devil, man, don't you answer it?"

Sam's apologetic smile sweetened his face.

"Why," he said haltingly--"I'm sure I meant no offence, but--you see, I'm a very busy man--I forgot it."

"The h.e.l.l you forgot it. D'ye expect me to believe that, man?"