PAGE 7
Roger Catron’s Friend
by
At last Captain Dick stopped and advanced to the footlights.
“Gentlemen and friends,” he said, slowly. “I foots up $25,000 as Roger Catron hez MADE, fair and square, in this yer county. I foots up $27,000 ez he has SPENT in this yer county. I puts it to you ez men,–far-minded men,–ef this man was a pauper and debtor? I put it to you ez far-minded men,–ez free and easy men,–ez political economists,–ez this the kind of men to impoverish a county?”
An overwhelming and instantaneous “No!” almost drowned the last utterance of the speaker.
“Thar is only one item,” said Captain Dick, slowly, “only one item, that ez men,–ez far-minded men,–ez political economists,–it seems to me we hez the right to question. It’s this: Thar is an item, read to you by me, of $2,000 paid to certing San Francisco detectives, paid out o’ the assets o’ Roger Catron, for the finding of Roger Catron’s body. Gentlemen of Sandy Bar and friends, I found that body, and yer it is!”
And Roger Catron, a little pale and nervous, but palpably in the flesh, stepped upon the platform.
Of course the newspapers were full of it the next day. Of course, in due time, it appeared as a garbled and romantic item in the San Francisco press. Of course Mrs. Catron, on reading it, fainted, and for two days said that this last cruel blow ended all relations between her husband and herself. On the third day she expressed her belief that, if he had had the slightest feeling for her, he would, long since, for the sake of mere decency, have communicated with her. On the fourth day she thought she had been, perhaps, badly advised, had an open quarrel with her relatives, and intimated that a wife had certain obligations, etc. On the sixth day, still not hearing from him, she quoted Scripture, spoke of a seventy-times-seven forgiveness, and went generally into mild hysterics. On the seventh, she left in the morning train for Sandy Bar.
And really I don’t know as I have anything more to tell. I dined with them recently, and, upon my word, a more decorous, correct, conventional, and dull dinner I never ate in my life.