The Postmaster Part 24

But that wa'n't all the advertisin', by a consider'ble sight. There was signs all up and down the main roads, with hands p'intin' in the "Windmill" direction. And there was ads in the Cape papers and in the Boston papers, too. I swan, I didn't believe anybody but Jim Henry Jacobs could have engineered such advertisin'! And there was a black-lookin' critter with the ends of his mustache waxed so sharp you could have sewed canvas with 'em-he was the French chef-and three foreign waiters, and a dark-complected fleshy woman who seemed to be a sort of general a.s.sistant manager and stewardess, and-and-goodness knows what there wa'n't. There was so many kinds of hired help that I couldn't see where Frank himself come in-unless he was the spare "windmill,"

which, judgin' by his gift of gab, I cal'late might be the fact.

"The Sign of the Windmill" bought all its groceries and general supplies at the store, which, considerin' that we'd turned down the "chance" to be part owners, seemed sort of odd to me, 'cause Frank didn't look like a feller who'd forgive a slight like that. But I judged Jim Henry had hypnotized him, as he done other difficult customers, and so I said nothin'. The auto season opened and our weekly bills with that road-house was big ones, but they was paid every week, and I hadn't any kick there, either.

As for the business that dinin'-room done, it was surprisin', particularly Sat.u.r.days and Sundays, when there'd be twenty or more autos in the front yard and more a-comin'. The table d'hote dinner at 1.15 was so well patronized that folks had to wait their turns at table and later, on moonlight nights, the old house was all lighted up and you could hear the noise of dishes rattlin' and the laughin' and singin'

till after eleven o'clock. And our bills with the "Sign of the Windmill"

kept gettin' bigger and bigger.

But though the auto parties was thick and the patronage good, still there was some dissatisfaction, I found out. One big car stopped at the store on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon and the boss of it talked with me while the women folks was inside buyin' postcards and such.

"Well," says I, to the owner of the car, a big, fleshy, good-natured chap he was, "well," says I, "I cal'late you've all had a good dinner.

Feed you fust-cla.s.s up there at the Windmill place, don't they?"

He sniffed. "Humph!" says he, "the food's all right. It ought to be, at the price. Is the proprietor of that hotel named Allie Baby?"

"Allie which?" I says, laughin'. "No, no, his name's Frank. Edwin George Eben etcetery Frank. What made you think 'twas Allie?"

"'Cause he's a close connection of the Forty Thieves," he says, sharp.

"He'd take a prize in the hog cla.s.s at a county fair, that chap would.

What's the matter with him? Does he think he's runnin' a get-rich-quick shop? Two weeks ago I paid a dollar and a half for a dinner there, and that was seventy-five cents too much. Now he's jumped to two-fifty and the feed ain't a bit better."

"Two dollars and a half for a _dinner_!" says I. "Whew! The cost of livin' _is_ goin' up, ain't it? What do they give you? Canary birds'

tongues on toast? Any sh.o.r.e dinner ever I see could be cooked for-"

He interrupted. "Sh.o.r.e dinner nothin'!" he snorts. "I wouldn't kick at the price if I got a good sh.o.r.e dinner. But what we got here is a poor imitation of a country Waldorf. Everybody's kickin', but we all go there because it's the best we can find for twenty miles. However, I hear another place is to be started in Denboro and if _that_ makes good, your Forty Thief friend will have to haul in his horns. He'll never get another cent from me, or a hundred others I know, who have been his best customers. We're all waitin' to give him the shake and it looks as if we should be able to do it. We motorin' fellers stick together and, if the word's pa.s.sed along the line, the "Sign of the Windmill" will be a dead one, mark my words."

I marked 'em, and when, by and by, I heard that the Denboro dinin'-room was open and doin' a good business, I underscored the mark.

This was about the middle of June. A week later Jim Henry got the telegram about his younger brother out in Colorado bein' sick and wantin' to see him bad. He hated to go, but he felt he had to, so he went.

I said good-by to him up at the depot and told him not to worry a mite.

"I'll look out for everything," I says. "Course I'll miss you at the store, but I'll write you every day or so and keep you posted, and you can give me business prescriptions by mail."

"That's all right, Skipper," says he, "I know the store'll be took care of. But there's one thing that-that-"

"What's the one thing?" I asked. "Overboard with it. My shoulders are broad and I won't mind totin' another hogshead or so."

He hesitated and it seemed to me that he looked troubled. But finally he said he'd guessed 'twas nothin' that amounted to nothin' anyway and he'd be back in a couple of weeks sure. So off he went and I had a sort of Robinson Crusoe desert island feelin' that lasted all that day and night.

It lasted longer than that, too. I didn't hear from him for ten days.

Then I got a note sayin' his brother had scarlet fever-which seemed a fool disease for a grown-up man to have-and was pretty sick. I wrote to him for the land sakes to be careful he didn't get it himself, and the next news I heard was from a doctor sayin' he _had_ got it. After that the bulletins was infrequent and alarmin'.

I'd have put for Colorado in a minute, but I couldn't; that store was on my shoulders and I couldn't leave. I telegraphed not to spare no expense and to write or wire every day. 'Twas all I could do, but I never spent such a worried time afore nor since. I was worried, not only about my partner, but about the business he'd put in my charge. There was new developments in that business and they kept on developin'.

'Twas the "Sign of the Windmill" that was troublin' me. As I told you, the weekly bills for that eatin'-house was big ones, but the fust three or four had been paid on the dot. Now, however, they wa'n't paid and they was just as big. Frank's account on our books kept gettin' larger and larger and, not only that, but anybody could see that the Windmill wa'n't doin' half the trade it begun with. There was more auto parties than ever, but the heft of 'em went right on by to the new road-house in Denboro. I remembered what the fleshy man told me and I judged that the word had been pa.s.sed to the motorin' crew, just as he prophesied.

I went up to see Frank and had a talk with him. I found him in his office, settin' at a fine new roll-top desk, with the dark-complected stewardess alongside of him. She seemed to be helpin' him with his letters and accounts, which looked odd to me, and she glowered at me when I come in like a cat at a stray poodle. She didn't get up and go out, neither, till he hinted p'raps she'd better, and even then she whispered to him mighty confidential afore she went. 'Twas a queer way for hired help to act, but 'twa'n't none of my affairs, of course.

He was cordial enough till he found out what I was after and then he chilled up like a freezer full of cream. He was in the habit of payin'

his bills, he give me to understand, and he'd pay this one when 'twas convenient. If I didn't care to sell the Windmill goods, that was my affair, of course, but his relations with my partner had been so pleasant that-and so forth and so on. I sneaked out of that office, feelin' like a henroost-thief instead of an honest man tryin' to collect an honest debt. I'd bungled things again. Instead of makin' matters better, I'd made 'em worse; come nigh losin' a good customer and all that. What business had an old salt herrin' like me to be in business, anyhow? That's how I felt when I was talkin' to him, and how I felt when I shut that office door and come out into the dinin'-room.

But the sight of that dinin'-room, tables all vacant, and two waiters where there had been four, fetched all my uneasiness back again. If ever a place had "Goin' down" marked on it 'twas the "Sign of the Windmill."

I stewed and fretted all the way to the store and when I got there I found that another big order of groceries and canned goods had been delivered to the eatin' house while I was gone.

The next week'll stick in my mind till doomsday, I cal'late. Every blessed mornin' found me vowin' I'd stop sellin' that Windmill, and every night found more dollars added to the bill. You see, I didn't know what to do. If I'd been sole owner and sailin' master, I'd have set my foot down, I guess; but there was Jim Henry to be considered. I wrote a note to the Frank man, but he didn't even trouble to answer it.

Sat.u.r.day noon came round and, after the mail was sorted, I wandered out to the front platform and set there, blue as a whetstone. The gang of summer boarders and natives, that's always around mail times, melted away fast and I was pretty nigh alone. Not quite alone; Alpheus Perkins, the fish man, was occupyin' moorin's at t'other end of the platform and he didn't seem to be in any hurry. By and by over he comes and sets down alongside of me.

"Cap'n Zeb," he says, fidgety like, "I s'pose likely you've been wonderin' why I don't pay your bill here at the store, ain't you?"

I hadn't, havin' more important things to think about, but now I remembered that he did owe consider'ble and had owed it for some time.

Alpheus is as straight as they make 'em and usually pays his debts prompt.

"I know you must have," he went on, not waitin' for me to answer. "Well, I intended to pay long afore this, and I will pay pretty soon. But I've had trouble collectin' my own debts and it's held me back. If I could only get my hands on one account that's owin' me, I'd be all right.

Say," says he, tryin' hard to act careless and as if 'twa'n't important one way or t'other: "Say," he says, "you know Mr. Frank, up here at the hotel, pretty well, don't you?"

For a minute or so I didn't answer. Then I knocked the ashes out of my pipe and says I, "Why, yes. I know him. What of it?"

"Oh, nothin' much," he says. "Only I was told he was a partic'lar friend of yours and Mr. Jacobs's and-and-"

"Who told you he was our partic'lar friend?" I asked.

"Why, he did. I was up there yesterday, just hintin' I could use a check on account. Not pressin' the matter nor tryin' to be hard on him, you understand; course he's all right; but I was mighty short of ready cash and so-"

"Hold on, Al!" I said, quick. "Wait! Does the 'Sign of the Windmill' owe you a bill?"

"Pretty nigh a hundred dollars," says he. "I've supplied 'em with fish and lobsters and clams and such ever since they started. Fust month they paid me by the week. After that-"

"Good heavens and earth!" I sung out. "My soul and body! And-and, when you asked for it, this-this Frank man told you he'd pay you when 'twas convenient, same as he paid Jacobs and me, who was his friends and was quite ready to do business that way."

He actually jumped, I'd surprised him so.

"Hey?" he sung out. "Zeb Snow, be you a second-sighter? How did you know he told me that?"

I drew a long breath. "It didn't take second sight for that," I says. "I was up there last Monday and he told me the same thing, only 'twas you and Ed Cahoon who was his friends then."

He let that sink in slow.

"My G.o.dfreys domino!" he groaned. "My G.o.dfreys! He-he told-Why! why, he must be workin' the same game on all hands!"

"Looks like it," says I, and, thinkin' of Jim Henry, poor feller, sick as he could be, and the business he'd left me to look out for, my heart went down into my boots.

Perkins set thinkin' for a jiffy. Then he got up off the settee.

"The son of a gun!" he says. "I'll fix him! I'll put my bill in a lawyer's hands to-night."

"No, you won't," I sung out, grabbin' him by the arm. "You mustn't. He owes the Ostable Store four times what he owes you, and it's likely he owes Cahoon and a lot more. The rest of us can't afford to let you upset the calabash that way. You might get yours, though I'm pretty doubtful, but where would the rest of us come in. You set down, Alpheus. Set down, and let me think. Set down, I tell you!"