The World for Sale, Complete

ose of Jowett, the horsedealer. "Take care what you're saying, Jowett," he said

us tongue. He was a favourite in both towns, and had ha

nd owned a corner lot or so, he seemed to care little what his company was. His most constant companion was Fabian Osterhaut, who was th

a soiree at a meeting-house with equal impartiality. He had been known to attend a temperance meeting and a wake in the same evening. Yet no one ever questioned his bona fides, and if he had attended mass

nitou. She had taken him in because, in years gone by, he had nursed her only son through an attack of smallpox on the Siwash River, and somehow Osterhaut had always paid his bills to her. He was curiously exact

Ingolby repeated. "I didn't think

moves round a lot, and he put me on to it. I took on the job at once. I got in with the French toughs over at Manitou, at Barbazon's Tavern, and I gave them gin-we ma

t before they'd done. I pretended to get mad, and I talked wild. I said that Lebanon would get them first, that Lebanon wouldn't wait, but'd have it out; and I took off my coat and staggered about-blind-fair blind boozy. I tripped over some fool's foot purposely, just beside a bench against the wall, and I come down on that bench hard. They laughed-Lord, how they laughed! They didn't mind my givin' 'em fits-all except one or two. That was what I expected. The one or two was mad. They begun raging towards me, but there I was asleep on the bench-st

of it. What was it? Why, the second night of the strike your new bridge over the river was t

what?" Ingolb

nam

ould the

m blasting bel

ight!

rd, come in and they quit talking about it; but t

ly, and his mouth gave a twist that

er to a barnful of hungry rats to be gnawed to death, it wouldn't help. I've heard and seen a lot of hellish things, but there's nothing to eq

she had, and didn't understand. He'd ha' been tarred and feathered if it'd been known. But old Mick Sarnia said hush, for his wife's sake, and so we hushed, and Sarnia's wife doesn't know even now. I thought a lot of Lil, as much almost as if she'd been my own; and lots o' times, when I think of it, I sit up straight, and the thing freezes me; and I want to get Marchand by the scruff of the neck. I got a horse, the worst that ever was-so bad I have

lly a man of action, but his action was the bullet of his mind; he had to be quiet physically when he was really thinking. Then he was as one in a dream where all physical motion was mechanical, and his body was acting automatically. His concentration, and therefore his

ke no mistake. There's a whole lot of toughs in Manitou. Then there's religion, and there's race, and there's a want-to-stand-still and leave-me-alone-feeling. They don't want to get on. They don't want progress. They want to throw the slops out of the top windows into the street; they want their cesspools at the front

d?" Ingolby asked meditat

od, and I'd send him there as quick as lightning. I'd hang him, if I could, for what he done to Lil Sarnia. Years ago when he was a boy he offered me a gold watch for a mare I had. The watch looked as righ

ed Ingolby, his mouth twisting

-she was a

t was the mat

right when she got wound u

ve paid for her, Jowett? Come now, man to man

worth, Chief, with

t was sh

d for her-t

tt threw back his head and laughed outright-laughed loud and har

re was a bubble of humour in his eyes.

rid o

horse-

a town lo

Leba

f in Lebanon'

he lot wo

o thousan

our first

of Mother Earth

got a vo

y first

let you be a t

my goo

servant, and an instrument of progress because of Felix Marchand.

bbe, not

d come back from fishing, and he was ready now for action. His plans were formed. He was in for a fight, a

s. I'm going to try and do with this business as you did with that watch. I'm going to try and turn it to account and profit in the end. Felix Marchand's profiting by a mistake of mine-a mistake in policy. It gives him his springboard; and there's enough dry grass in both towns to get a big blaze with a very little match. I know that things are seething. The Chief Constable keeps me po

l have, I bet," was

If my policy is carried out, my town lot'll be worth a pocketful of gold-plated watches or a stud of spavined mares." He chuckled to

ida

y say wh

in the m

th. I'm going to do Marchand, and I'm going to do him in a way that'll be best in the end. You can h

ause it's worth while, but

ned to the table, opened a drawer, and took out a folded paper. He lo

hwest Railway, with my regards, Jowet

I'm almost white, Chief. I've never made a deal with you, and don't want to. I'm your man for

hares, Jowett. You've helped me, and

a humorous, eager look shot into Jowett's face. "Will you toss f

in, tails

oo

om his pocket, and tossed. It c

" Jowett asked sharply, his face flushed

look at the dollar on the floor. It had come up heads. "You win," said Ingolby, and t

he said. "You risked a lot

come by these sha

ar from the floor, and was a

my dollar,"

" said Jowett, and hand

eted it with

They were only concerned for the rules of th

t not encouraging evident desire for talk with him. Men half-started forward to him, but he held them back with a restraining eye. They knew his ways. He was responsive in a brusque, inquisitive, but good-humoured and sometimes very droll way; but

mpelled the submission of others. All these had vowed to "get back at him," but when it became a question of Lebanon against Manitou they swung over to his side and acknowledged him as leader. The physi

eckoning from three points of the compass. That point which did not beckon was behind them. Flaxen-haired Swedes and Norwegians; square-jawed, round-headed North Germans; square-shouldered, loose-jointed Russians with heavy contemplative eyes and long hair, looked curiously at each other and nodded understandingly. Jostling them all, with a jeer and an oblique joke here and there, and crude chaff on each other and everybody, the settler from the United States asserted himself. He invariably obtruded

a spot where a great gap of vacant land showed in the street-land which he had bought for the new offices of his railway combine-he stood and looked at it abstractedly. Beyond it, a few blocks away, was the Sagalac, and beyond the Sagalac was Manitou, and a little way to

d to himself. "A strike-why, wages are double what they

ve you got a minute to spar

tor. "Ah, Rockwell," he responded cheerfully, "

ery one, to identify him from the newer importatio

e here about me," he re

Ingolby studied the paper carefully, for Rock

golby said firmly as he fin

got to dea

going to deny i

act

dn't, R

would

of the people who read the lie don't see the denial. Yo

en you're lied about,

it runs too fast. Truth's slow-footed. When a newspaper tel

not resist the audacity. "I don't believe you'd do i

get something spectacular in my own fa

what

would be lies, but the one would neutralize the other. If I said I could ride a moke, nobody would see it, and if it were seen it wouldn't make any impression; but to say I killed two

ored. "You're certainly a wonder," he

I succ

ree-and wh

t am

well mas

it again. This is a democratic country. They'd kick at my being cal

th, and it hasn't

lances, the Sultan, here just for one week. I'd change some things. I'd gag some people that are doing terrible

nted to a column. "I expect you haven't seen that. To m

ipple, the evangelical minister of Lebanon. It was a paean of the Scriptures accompanied by a crazy charge that t

ou know what those fellows are over in Manitou. The place is full of them going to the woods, besides the toughs at the mills

n Orangeman tomorrow. The Ora

e said, his jaw setting grimly. "This thing's a call to riot. There's an eleme

ely; "and I don't know that even you can tell another t

mouth. "We've got to have a try. We've got

a row on to us. I can just see the toughs at Manitou w

anno

to Orangemen to attend the funeral of a b

l told him, urging at the same time that he see the Chi

things. Between ourselves, Rockwell, I'd have plenty of

ious enough, and it's gradually becoming a vendetta.

nose-

-driver bit a t

of disgust. "And this i

ceeded the sound of a violin. "I'm going in here," Ingolby said. "I've got some

thought for a minute. "No, I'll tackle them myself, but you get in touch with Monseigneur Lourde. He's grasped

Tri

to use it, but I will now without compunction. I have the means in m

erulean bowl flocks of wild geese sailed, white and grey and black, while the woods across the Sagalac were glowing with a hundred colours, giving tender magnificence to the scene. The busy eagerness of a pioneer life was still a quiet, orderly thing, so imme

like that," Ingolby answered. "I go round with a life-preser

hop kept scraping out its chea

morning," remarked Rockwell. "He's

, he's thinking. I go fishing when I'm in trouble; Be

e friends as o

y, but I've always had a kind of kinship with

others-I hope

s were like you. It's the highly respectable me

He wore a suit of Western clothes as a military man wears mufti, if not awkwardly, yet with a manner not wholly natural-the coat too tight across the chest, t

and smiled scornfully. Then his look fell on the two fig

him. What he should do when they met must be according to circumstances. That did not matter. There was the impulse storming in his brain, and it drove him across the s

eror, and he put Ingolby higher than an emperor. For one who had been born a slave, and had still the scars of the overseer's whip on his back, he was very independent. He cut everybody's hair as he wanted to cut it, trimmed each beard as he wished to trim it, regardless of its owner's wishes. If there was dissent, then his customer need not come again, that was all. There were other barbers in the place, but Berry was the master barber. To have your head massaged by him was n

d round and saw the Romany. His first impression was one of admiration, but suspicion was quickly added. He was a good judge of men, an

lowered the fiddle from his chin an

he said qu

t made up his mind what he should do. It had been mere impulse and the

fiddle is not here. My finge

gainst his visitor, and he had been prepared to send him to another sho

," he said after a slight pau

layed the second violin in a Tzigany orchestra. He turned the fiddle slowly round, looking at it with mechanical intentness. Through the passion of emotion the sure sense of the musician wa

by and back again with a veiled look, as though he had drawn down bl

" observed old Berry sharply, yet with a con

he strings. Such a sound had never come from Berry's violin before. It was the touch of

h a veiled look, and as though he was thinking of somet

house on the hill. Was the man a Romany, and, if so, what was he doing here? Had it anything to do with Gabriel Druse and his daughter? But no-what was there strange in the man being a Roma

father made that fiddle in the cotton-

ed a life which was the staring antithesis of his own, under the whip as a boy, confined to compounds; whose vision was constricted to the limits of an estate; who was at the will of one man, to be sold and trafficked with like a barrel of herrings, to be worked at another's will-and at no price! This w

u? I've got business here with Mr. Berry, but five minutes of good

ic in the thing," he said, "and a lot could come

husband's best friend. He had seen men and women avert their heads when he had played it, daring not to look into each other's eyes. He would play it now-a little of it. He would play it to her-to the girl who had set him free in the Sagalac woods, to the ravishing deserter from her people, to the only woman who had told him the truth in all his life, and who insulated his magnetism as a ground-wire insulates lightning. He would summon her here by his imagination, and tell her to note how his soul had caught the music of the spheres. He would su

d heads were thrust inside in ravished wonder-the palpitating Romany lowered the fiddl

or a t'ousand dollars. If I could play like dat I wouldn't sell it

makes it better than it is. It's not a good fiddle, but it has something-a

ays in it. It's got the whip and the stocks in it; it's got the cry of the old

anger, he swept down on the front doo

aid with an angry wave of hi

have," he said. He tried to co

rily; "and, if I had, it wouldn't be busy on you. I got two customers, and that's all I'm go

f them cared to offend this au

mself with the enthusiasm of a wilful amateur, who took liberties with every piece he essayed. There was something in this fellow's playing which the great masters, such as Paganini, must have had. As the music

ush crossed his face. "Every

eard him play but once-in London years ago: but there's the same

come into his brain. Was it through his fiddling that he was going to f

ctually charged me Customs duty on it. I'd seen it

our house here?" asked

or any one that can play. How would you like to try it?" he added to Jethro in a friendly tone. "I'd gi

bring matters to

ed. "To play the Sarasate

ne o'clock to-ni

the lids drooping over his eyes in which were the

omething on his visiting-card. "My man'll l

As he left the shop, however, and passed down the street his mind remained in the barber-shop. He saw in imagination the masterful Gorgio in the red-plush chair, and the negro barber bending over him, with black fingers holding the Gorgio's chin, and an open razor in the right hand lightly grasped. A flash of malicious desire came into his eyes as the vision shaped itself in his imagination, and he saw himself, instead of the negro barber, holding the Gorgio chin and looking down at the Gorgio throat with the

gs you made for that theatrical performance of the Mounted Police, Berry," he said. "Never mind what it

ll bring it round as I come fro

them with Osterhaut. I'

to know wha

ost, Berry. You're a friend of th

me use to you, onct

e to be of use more

p. That Felix Marchand and his roughs can't down you. I hear and see a lot

his friend, and was rewarded by Ingo

y. "When do you go over to Manitou again

ay-this evening,

itou. In disguise I'm going there tonight among them all, among the roughs and toughs. I want to find out th

the old man admiringly. "How yo

e got a lot to do to-day, but it's in hand, and I don't have to

hen. But if you go to Manitou to-ni

I'll go to Manitou later. E

d the door, and for an instant he did not see who it was. Presently he heard an unctuous vo

ental meetings were better than planned interviews. Old Berry's grizzled beard was bristling with repugnance, and he was about to refuse Mr. Tripple th

from Ingolby's eyes

proud." He opened the

uncanny feeling when his eye met that of Ingolby. His apprehension had no foundation in any knowledge, yet he had felt that Ingolby had no love for him, and this disturbed the egregious vanity of a

smiling, placed his hat on the floor, and rested his hands on the table. Ingolby could not help but notice how coarse the hands

sermon last night which no doubt was meant to d

shed, and then made an

his occasion before you were moved-just a little while before," answere

hick rejoinder. The man had a feeling

bring riot and bloodshed between these two t

ponsible to my Lord for words whic

o all of us. If there is trouble at the Orange funeral to-mo

rd of th

you can have it, and have it now. If you had taken what I said in the right way, I would not have done what

u to tell m

and emotion, but also with fear of something.

d only a spark was needed to fire the ricks. You struck the spark in your sermon last night. I don'

gone dry with excitement, the loose body

ted. "My conscience alone will guide me. I'll speak th

I can. I've got no legal rights over you, but I have moral rights, and I mean to enforce them.

inister's eyes with his own. "Had you the s

e, and the beady eyes took on a glazed

with my company to come out here as a foreman. He came to drop on you. The day after he came he had a bad accident. I went to see him. He told me all; his nerves were unstrung, you observe. He meant to ruin you, as y

s before him, and a heavy sweat stoo

the honour of the town of Lebanon. I couldn't let the thing take its course. I got the doctor to tell the man that he must go for special treatment to a hospital in Montreal, and I-well, I bought him off on his promising to keep his mouth shut. He was a bit stiff in terms, because he said the

fore the other's face. "Have a good look at your own han

and he had nearly collapsed before he heard the end of the matter. When he knew that Ingolby had saved him, his strength gave way, and

he shaken figure straightened itself, and the water wa

that you've been a fool?" Ingolby a

ried to a

t to atone. You were fat with vanity

ture I

kohama or Bagdad, I hope; and leave here in a few weeks. You understand? I've thought the thing out, and you've got to go. You'll do no good to yourself or others here. Take my advice, and wherever you go, walk six m

ight, and steadied itself with a fo

he said and looked Ingolby squar

your word," Ingolby rep

the door, and laid

e of bills into his hand. "There's a hundred dollars fo

e crept into Tripple's face. "I will keep

responded Ingolby abr

ence in Lebanon. "I couldn't shake hands with him," said Ingolby to himself, "bu

rfully as he passed through the barber-shop. "Suh, if you