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“Go on with Melville Bickner,” said I.

“What do you expect,” retorted Mr. Martin with a vindictive gleam in his eye, “when you give a man one of these here spiral staircase cigars? Old Peter himself couldn’t keep straight along one subject if he tackled a cigar like this. Well, sir, I always thought Mel had a mighty mean time of it. He had to take care of his mother and two sisters, his little brother and an aunt that lived with them; and there was mighty little to do it on; big men don’t usually leave much but debts, and in this country, of course, a man can’t eat and spend long on his paw’s reputation, like that little Dook of Reishtod–“

“I beg to tell you, Mr. Martin–” Fiderson began hotly.

Martin waved his bony hand soothingly.

“Oh, I know; they was money in his mother’s family, and they give him his vittles and clothes, and plenty, too. His paw didn’t leave much either–though he’d stole more than Boss Tweed. I suppose–and, just lookin’ at things from the point of what they’d earned, his maw’s folks had stole a good deal, too; or else you can say they were a kind of public charity; old Metternich, by what I can learn, bein’ the only one in the whole possetucky of ’em that really did anything to deserve his salary–” Mr. Martin broke off suddenly, observing that I was about to speak, and continued:

“Mel didn’t git much law practice, jest about enough to keep the house goin’ and pay taxes. He kept workin’ for the party jest the same and jest as cheerfully as if it didn’t turn him down hard every time he tried to git anything for himself. They lived some ways out from town; and he sold the horses to keep the little brother in school, one winter, and used to walk in to his office and out again, twice a day, over the worst roads in the State, rain or shine, snow, sleet, or wind, without any overcoat; and he got kind of a skimpy, froze-up look to him that lasted clean through summer. He worked like a mule, that boy did, jest barely makin’ ends meet. He had to quit runnin’ with the girls and goin’ to parties and everything like that; and I expect it may have been some hard to do; for if they ever was a boy loved to dance and be gay, and up to anything in the line of fun and junketin’ round, it was Mel Bickner. He had a laugh I can hear yet–made you feel friendly to everybody you saw; feel like stoppin’ the next man you met and shakin’ hands and havin’ a joke with him.

“Mel was engaged to Jane Grandis when Governor Bickner died. He had to go and tell her to take somebody else–it was the only thing to do. He couldn’t give Jane anything but his poverty, and she wasn’t used to it. They say she offered to come to him anyway, but he wouldn’t hear of it, and no more would he let her wait for him; told her she mustn’t grow into an old maid, lonely, and still waitin’ for the lightning to strike him–that is, his luck to come; and actually advised her to take ‘Gene Callender, who’d be’n pressin’ pretty close to Mel for her before the engagement. The boy didn’t talk to her this way with tears in his eyes and mourning and groaning. No, sir! It was done cheerful; and so much so that Jane never was quite sure afterwerds whether Mel wasn’t kind of glad to git rid of her or not. Fact is, they say she quit speakin’ to him. Mel knowed; a state of puzzlement or even a good mad’s a mighty sight better than bein’ all harrowed up and grief-stricken. And he never give her–nor any one else–a chanst to be sorry for him. His maw was the only one heard him walk the floor nights, and after he found, out she could hear him he walked in his socks.