Читать книгу Speedy - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Never in his life Had John Pierson met with a human being who so thoroughly irritated him in every way as did this lad.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-two, sir,” said the boy, with a false humility.

“College, eh?”

“Part way, sir.”

“Stop calling me ‘sir!’ ”

“Very well, sir.”

Now, in his own town, throughout his community, and in many ways it was a large one, Pierson was a man of great influence and power. His word was respected, his advice followed. Throughout this same mountain district, there were few people, no matter what their position, who would not gladly have bowed to him. Here was the exception, and a most unpleasant one it proved. He was even angry with himself because a worthless waif moved him so much.

“My boy,” said he, “I will make a bargain with you. This place happens to suit me. There must be a thousand others where you can lie on grass just as soft as that. I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll stir along.”

The boy nodded, not as one assenting, but one considering.

“That’s a matter,” he declared at last, “that needs a lot of considering. In the first place, there’s the question of the way this bank fits my back. Nature isn’t such a handy cabinet maker, you know.”

“Humph!” said the lawyer.

“Then there’s the fish to consider,” said the boy.

“The fish?”

“I’ve been seeing the glint of ’em down there in the water for some time. I’d hate to disturb ’em as long as the sun is shining like this.”

“But after it stops shining?” suggested the lawyer.

“Oh, then I’d eat a dozen of ’em with a lot of pleasure, thank you.”

“A very good speech for the perfect opportunist,” said the man of the law.

“Finally, and the thing that seems to close the question,” went on the handsome tramp, “there’s the matter of my profession.”

“Ah-ha,” said the lawyer. “And what might your profession be?”

“Acting,” said this brazen-faced lad.

“You’re an actor, are you? What parts do you play?” demanded Pierson.

“Sometimes,” said the boy, “I’m a son who’s been disinherited by a cruel father. Sometimes, I’ve been robbed by greedy lawyers.”

“Stuff!” said Pierson. “You mean that these are the tales you tell to credulous fools?”

“Sometimes,” went on the boy, “I’m about to go to work to earn enough money to finish my school course. Sometimes I’m recovering from an attack of the great white plague.”

“Consumption, my foot,” said Pierson. “You’re as healthy a specimen as I ever saw.”

“When one plays many roles, one needs makeup,” said the boy.

He seemed pleased as he related his roguery; whatever annoyed the older man seemed delectable to him.

“Then again,” said the boy, “I’ve been the son of a rich American owner of mines in Mexico. He and the whole family murdered, myself knifed and shot almost to pieces by Mexican brigands, I have fled north out of the country, and so I find myself destitute, but determined, one day, to return to the land where I have been wronged, and revenge my dead father and brothers and sisters upon the murderers!”

The lawyer nodded.

“In fact,” said he, “You’re a professional beggar.”

“If you heard one of my yarns,” said the boy, yawning, “you’d give it a more complimentary name. I ought, in fact, to be a writer; but even writing, in short, is a form of labor.”

“I suppose it is,” said the lawyer. “Tell me, my young friend, do the dolts to whom you tell the Mexican story ever ask to see your scars?”

“I have even stripped to the waist,” said the boy. “It’s something that I don’t like to do, but if I find, say a Texan who doesn’t like greasers, I’ve stripped to the waist to show where the bullets struck and the knives cut. That is generally worth several hundred dollars.”

“You’re a thorough rascal,” said the lawyer.

“It’s my profession,” answered the boy. “You can’t blame a man for what he does inside his profession.”

“Profession? Stuff! You make up the scars that the idiots think they see on your body?”

“You know how it is,” said the youngster. “When one is shouldering his way around the world, one bumps into various obstacles that are capable of making wounds.”

“Such as the toss of hobnailed boots,” suggested the lawyer.

“Yes,” answered the boy, without appearing to take offense, “or it may be the iron-framed lantern of a shack.”

“You work the railways a good deal, I suppose?” said Pierson.

“Horses are usually too slow for me,” said the boy.

“Yes,” nodded Pierson. “I dare say that when you leave a place you usually have to leave fast.”

“And go far,” remarked the lad.

“Now and then,” said the lawyer, “you will meet up with a dupe of a former day, too?”

“Now and then,” agreed the boy, cheerfully. “But on the whole, this is an amazingly large world.”

“You’re young,” said the lawyer. “As you get older, you may find more thorns on the bush.”

“As I grow older, I grow more expert,” said the lad.

“Tell me,” said the lawyer, “what you call yourself?”

“An entertainer,” said the boy.

In spite of himself, Pierson was forced to chuckle.

“And what name do you work under?”

“I’ve been called a good many names,” answered the tramp, “some of them long, and some of them short. I’ve been called more one-syllable names than almost anyone in the world, I suppose. But the one I prefer is Speedy.”

“Speedy?”

“You will see how it is,” answered the tramp. “I sometimes give people a fast ride, and they generally have quite a bill to pay at the end of it.”

“If you come into my community,” said Pierson, “you won’t take many for more than a short ride.”

“No?”

“No,” said Pierson.

“What’s your town, if you please?”

“Durfee.”

“I’ve heard of that place. How many people?”

“About ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand? That’s plenty. Ten thousand is a whole world of opportunity, to me. When do you go home?”

“In about three days.”

“Very well,” said Speedy, “I’ll guarantee to be there. I’ll guarantee to call on you at once, and let you know where I am, and whom I’m working on. And in spite of you, I’ll promise that I’ll come away with a good slice of coin.”

“Impossible, you impertinent young rat,” said Pierson, swelling more and more with his anger.

“Well,” said Speedy, “I’ll make you a bet.”

“Very well. I’ll take the bet.”

“You give me odds, of course?”

“I give you odds? Why should I give you odds?”

“Because I hope that you’re a fair sport. Here I am putting my cards on the table. I’m the mouse entering the lion’s den. I’m going to go to your home town, where the celebrated legal power and brain, Mr. John W. Smith, is like the very blood brother of God Almighty, and there—”

“My name is John Pierson,” said the lawyer, coldly. “I’ll bet you three hundred dollars to one hundred that you don’t make enough in Durfee to pay your end of the bet.”

“Good,” said the boy. “That’s only an evening’s work for me. The day I tell you on whom I’m intending to work, I’ll guarantee that I get the money in hard cash. I’ll collect from you the next morning.”

“The next morning you’ll be in jail for vagabondage,” said the lawyer.

“I’ll accept another bet at evens, on that account,” said the boy.

“Perhaps you’ve never even been in jail, my lad?” suggested Pierson.

“I’ve been there,” said the boy. “Once I even rested for a week, but that was because an unlucky Mexican had put a knife through my leg.”

“Through the leg?” asked the lawyer, doubtfully. “Mexicans don’t stab people in the leg!”

“This one started his knife for my heart,” admitted the boy, nonchalantly, “but I kicked him in the face, and that rather spoiled his aim.”

“I suppose,” said the lawyer, frowning, “that you’re an expert gunman, yourself?”

He maintained his scowl for a time. After all, there was a light in the boy’s eyes that might not be altogether effeminacy.

“I never carried a weapon in my life,” said Speedy. “It’s not my way. Guns? Horrible things. They shoot men into prison. No, no, I never carry weapons.”

“You carry the weight of a good many beatings, then,” said the other.

“Now and then I’ve had a stick broken over my shoulders,” admitted Speedy. “Now and then a bullet grazes me. Now and then a knife is stuck in me. But you know how it is—this is a world of sweets and sours, and—”

“You worthless, hypocritical—” began the lawyer.

And then he checked himself.

“I apologize,” he said, ironically. “I forget that you simply are one who works inside his profession.”

“Exactly so,” said the boy, “and also—”

He also stopped.

For this time an interruption came from the little brown and black mongrel, whose wits and nose served Pierson.

It had started up a rabbit among the rocks. The rabbit had jumped the stream, and the brave little puppy had unwisely attempted the same feat. The result was that it fell plump into the middle of the stream, and was now whirling round and round, barking a call for help, as the water swept it rapidly down towards the brink of the waterfall.