CHAPTER VI
It was not settled that evening. Martha declared she must have at least a few hours in which to think it over and Galusha, of course, agreed.
"It won"t take too long," she said. "Naturally, you want to know so that you can make your plans."
Galusha smiled. "Please take as much time as you need, Miss Phipps," he urged. "If you permit me to remain here while you are--ah--endeavoring to reach a decision I shall be quite satisfied, really. In that case, you know, I should be willing to wait for the decision until spring.
Dear me, yes--even until summer."
Martha laughed and declared she should decide long before that. "I think breakfast time to-morrow will settle it," she added.
It did. After breakfast she informed him that he might stay if he wished.
"Though WHY you want to I can"t understand," she said. "And of course it is part of the agreement that you"ll feel free to give it up and go any time you wish; as soon as you begin to get tired of the place and us, I mean."
He beamed satisfaction. "I shall not be the one to tire first," he declared. Then he added, earnestly, "Of course, Miss Phipps, you will be perfectly frank and tell me at once if you change YOUR mind. And if I should become a--ah--well, a sort of nuisance, be irregular at meals, or noisy or--What is it? I beg your pardon?"
She had laughed outright. She was still smiling when she apologized.
"Please excuse me for laughin", Mr. Bangs," she said, "but don"t you think yourself that that is funny? The idea of your bein" noisy, I mean."
He stroked his chin.
"We-ll," he admitted, "perhaps it is. But sometimes I am quite boisterous, really I am. I remember once, years ago, I was in an old cemetery in New Hampshire and I suddenly discovered an inscription which pleased me VERY much. MOST quaint and unusual it was--dear me, yes. And quite unconsciously I burst into a shout--a cheer, as one may say. The old s.e.xton was quite scandalized and warned me not to do it again. He said it would disturb people. I don"t know whom he meant, there were no living people to be disturbed."
The question of terms was the cause of a supplementary discussion. Mr.
Bangs insisted upon continuing the three dollars a day rate and Miss Martha declared he should do nothing of the kind.
"That three dollars a day was just a temporary thing," she said. "I said it just because I was sure you would go over to Elmer Rogers" if I didn"t. Elmer Rogers is a robber and always was. Father used to say he was the forty-first member of the Forty Thieves and that they didn"t boil him because he wasn"t enough account to waste hot oil on."
"But--ah--it seems to me that if the Rogers" House board is worth three dollars a day yours should be worth five at least."
"Maybe so, but I never heard anybody but Elmer say his board was worth one dollar, let alone three."
They compromised on a daily rate of two and a half per day, which each declared to be ridiculous.
Thus Galusha Cabot Bangs became no longer a transitory but a regular boarder and lodger at the Phipps" place. The fact became known to Miss Primrose Cash that forenoon, to the driver of the grocer"s cart one hour later, and to all of East Wellmouth before bedtime. It was news and, in October in East Wellmouth, one item of local news is a rare and blessed dispensation.
Before another day had pa.s.sed the news item had been embellished. Mr.
Bangs visited the general store of Erastus Beebe to purchase headgear to replace the brown derby. Erastus happened to be busy at the moment--there were two customers in his store at the same time, an event most unusual--so Galusha"s wants were supplied by no less a person than Mr. Horatio Pulcifer.
Raish"s greeting was condescendingly genial.
"Well, well!" he exclaimed, pumping the little man"s arm up and down with one hand and thumping his shrinking shoulder blades with the other.
"If it ain"t the perfessor himself! How are you this mornin", Mr. Bangs?
Right up and comin, eh?"
Galusha would have withdrawn his hand from the Pulcifer clutch if withdrawal had been possible. It being quite impossible, he murmured that he was--"ah--quite well" and, conscious that the eyes of Mr. Beebe and his two customers were fixed upon him, fixed his own gaze upon Mr.
Pulcifer"s a.s.sortment of watch charms and shivered with embarra.s.sment.
"Ain"t it funny, now?" queried Raish, addressing the world in general.
"Ain"t it funny how things happen? When I fetched you over in my car t"other night didn"t I say I hoped you and me"d meet again? That"s what I said. And now we"ve met twice since. Once in the old boneyard and now here, eh? And they tell me you like East Wellmouth so much you"re goin"
to stick around for a spell. Good business! Say, I"ll be sellin" you a piece of Wellmouth property one of these days to settle down on. That"s the kind of talk, eh, Perfessor? Haw, haw, haw!"
He pounded the Bangs" shoulder blades once more. Mr. Beebe and his two customers echoed the Pulcifer laugh. Galusha smiled painfully--as the man in the operating chair smiles at the dentist"s jokes.
"I--I--excuse me," he faltered, turning to the grinning Erastus, "can I--That is, have you a--ah--hat or--or cap or something I might buy?"
Before the proprietor of the general store could answer, Mr. Pulcifer answered for him. Again the hand descended upon the Bangs" shoulder.
"Haw, haw!" roared Raish, joyfully. "I get you, Mr. Bangs. The old lid blew out to sea and we"ve got to get a new one. Say, that was funny, wasn"t it; that hat goin" that way? I don"t know"s I ever laughed more in my life. One minute she was jumpin" along amongst them gravestones like a hoptoad with wings, and then--Zing! Fsst! away she went a half mile or so down into the breakers. Haw, haw, haw! And to see your face!
Why--"
Galusha interrupted.
"PLEASE don"t do that," he said, nervously.
"Hey? Do what?"
"Ah--slap my back. I"d rather you wouldn"t, if you don"t mind.
And--oh--I should like to see a--a cap or something."
The last sentence was addressed to Mr. Beebe, who cleared his throat importantly.
"Jest a minute, jest a minute," said Erastus. "Soon"s I get through waitin" on these customers I"ll "tend to you. Jest a minute. Yeast cake, did you say, Mrs. Blount?"
"Ohh, pardon me," faltered Galusha. "I"ll wait, of course."
"Wait?" It was Mr. Pulcifer who spoke. "You don"t have to wait. I know Ras"s stock as well as he does, pretty nigh. I"LL show you a cap, Mr.
Bangs."
"Oh--oh, I couldn"t think of troubling you, really I couldn"t."
"No trouble at all. What"s a little trouble amongst neighbors, eh? And that"s what we are now--neighbors, eh? Sure, Mike! You and me are goin"
to see a lot of each other from now on. There! There"s a good, stylish cap, if I do say it. Try it on? What"s your size, Perfessor?"
Five minutes later Galusha descended the steps of the Beebe store, wearing a cloth cap which was, to say the very least, out of the ordinary. Its material was a fuzzy frieze of nondescript colors, a shade of dingy yellow predominating, and its shape was weird and umbrellalike.
With it upon his head little Galusha resembled a walking toadstool--an unhealthy, late-in-the-season toadstool.
The quartet in the Beebe store watched his departure from the windows.
All were hugely amused, but one, Mr. Pulcifer, was hilarious.
"Haw, haw, haw!" roared Raish. "Look at him! Don"t he look like a bullfrog under a lily pad? Eh? Don"t he now? Haw, haw, haw!"
Erastus Beebe joined in the laugh, but he shook his head.
"I"ve had that cap in stock," he said, "since--well, since George Cahoon"s son used to come down drummin" for that Boston hat store, and he quit much as eight year ago, anyhow. How did he ever come to pick THAT cap out, Raish?"