FullReads

“What puzzles me is why Mort Fryback’s offerin’ this reward, and all that, if he knows the dog is dead. It costs money to have bills like this printed at the Banner office.” So spoke Elmer Pratt, the photographer. “Wasn’t he present at the obsequies?”

“No, he wasn’t,” said Alf. “He claims now that he don’t know anything about it, and, besides, Bill Kepsal says he’ll beat the head off of anybody that says Mike passed away on his premises–including Mort. So naturally Mort denies it. He told me yesterday he would deny it even if he had both of his legs; but what chance, says he, has a one-legged man got with big Bill Kepsal?”

“Here comes Anderson now,” said Mr. Spratt, his gaze fixed on an approaching figure.

It was zero weather in northern New York State, and the ancient Marshal of Tinkletown was garbed accordingly. The expansive collar of his brass-buttoned ulster was turned up, completely obscuring the ear-flaps and part of the coonskin cap he was wearing. An enormous pair of arctics covered his feet; his grey and red mittens were of the homemade variety; a muffler of the same material enveloped his gaunt neck, knotted loosely under his chin in such a way as to leave his whiskers free not only to the wind but to the vicissitudes of conversation as well. The emblem of authority, a bright silver star, gleamed on the breast of his ulster.

He stopped when he reached the group huddled in front of the drugstore, and glared accusingly at Alf Reesling.

“I thought I told you to keep off the streets,” he said ominously. “Didn’t I tell you yesterday I’d run you in if I caught you drunk in the streets again?”

“Yes, you did,” replied Alf, in a justifiably bellicose manner; “but I still stick to what I said to you at first when you said that to me.”

“What was that?”

“I said you couldn’t ketch me even if I was dead drunk and unconscious in the gutter, that’s what I said.”

“For two cents, I’d show you,” said Anderson.

“Well, go ahead. Just add two cents to what you claim I already owe you, and go ahead with your runnin’ me in. But before you do it, lemme warn you I’ll sue you for false arrest, and then where’ll you be? I got five witnesses right here that’ll swear I ain’t drunk now and haven’t been in twenty-three years.”

“That shows just how drunk you are,” said Anderson triumphantly. “Far as I can see, there are only four men here.”

“Don’t you call yourself a man?”

“What say?”

“I mean I got five witnesses includin’ you, that’s what I mean. I’m gettin’ sick of you all the time tellin’ me I been drinkin’ again, when you know I ain’t touched a drop since 1896. Why, dog-gone you, Andy Crow, if it wasn’t for me an’ the way you keep on talkin’ about juggin’ me, you wouldn’t have any excuse at all fer bein’ town marshal. You–“

“That’ll do now,” interrupted Anderson severely. “You have said them very words to me a thousand times, Alf Reesling, and–Who’s that coming out of the post office?”

The group gradually turned to look up the street. Tinkletown is a slow place. Its inhabitants do everything with a deliberation that suggests the profoundest ennui. For example, a gentleman of Tinkletown rarely raised his hat on meeting a lady. He invariably started to do so, but as the ladies of the place were in the habit of moving with more celerity than the gentlemen, he failed on most occasions to complete the undertaking. What’s the sense of takin’ your hat off to a woman, he would argue, if she’s already got past you? So far as anybody knew, there wasn’t a woman in town with an eye in the back of her head.

“Looks like a stranger,” said Newt Spratt.

“It certainly does,” agreed Anderson. “Yes, I’m right,” he added an instant later.