OF TIME AND THE RIVER. Thomas Wolfe
it,” Mr. Candler said, “and from that day on Dave Redmond was one of the biggest boosters that Luke had. . . . ‘I think you’re going to regret it,’” said Mr. Candler again, laughing at the memory. “That’s the thing that did it — that’s what got him — the way the boy just looked at him and said, ‘All right, sir, but I think you’re going to regret it.’ That did the trick, all right.” And pleased with his story and the memory it evoked, Mr. Candler looked mildly out of the window for a moment, smiling.
“That was Luke that done that?” Mr. Flood demanded hoarsely after a moment, with his air of brutal and rather stunned surprise. “The one that stutters?”
“Yes, that’s the one all right,” said Mr. Candler. “That’s who it was.”
Mr. Flood pondered this information for a moment with his bulging eyes still fastened on Mr. Candler in their look of stupefied curiosity. Then, as the full import of what he had heard at length soaked into his intelligence, he shook his great coarse head once, slowly, in a movement of ponderous but emphatic satisfaction, and said with hoarse conviction:
“Well, he’s a good ’un! If any one can sell ’em, he’s the one.”
This judgment was followed by a brief but heavy pause, which was broken in a moment by the voice of the pompous, swarthy little man who, in a tone of detached curiosity, said:
“Whatever became of that other boy — the one who used to work there in The Courier office when you owned it? What was his name, anyway?”
“Ben,” said Mr. Flood heavily, but without hesitation. “That was Ben.” Here he coughed in an alarming, phlegmy sort of way, cleared his throat and spat chokingly into the spittoon at his feet, wiped his mouth with his wadded handkerchief and in a moment, panting for breath, wheezed:
“Ben was the one that worked for me.”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes!” the swarthy little man said rapidly, as if now it all came back to him. “Ben! That was the one! Whatever became of him? I haven’t seen him recently.”
“He’s dead,” said Mr. Flood, still wheezing rapidly for breath and gazing at the spittoon. “That’s the reason you haven’t seen him,” he said seriously. And suddenly, as if the long-awaited moment had come, he bent over, torn by a fit of choking and phlegmy sounds of really astounding proportions. When it was over, he raised himself, settled back slowly and painfully in his seat, and for a moment, with closed eyes, did nothing but wheeze rapidly. In a moment, still with closed eyes, he gasped almost inaudibly:
“Ben was the one that died.”
“Oh, yes! I do remember now,” the pompous little man declared, nodding his head sharply with an air of conviction. “That’s been some time ago, hasn’t it?” he said to the boy.
“He died two years ago,” the boy replied, “during the war.”
“Oh, that’s so, he did! I remember now!” the man cried instantly, with an air of recollection that somehow said that he remembered nothing. “He was overseas at the time, wasn’t he?” he asked smoothly.
“No, sir,” the boy answered. “He was at home. He died of pneumonia — during that big epidemic.”
“I know,” the man said regretfully. “That got a lot of the boys. Ben was in service at the time, wasn’t he?”
“No,” the boy answered. “He never got in. Luke was the one who was in service. Ben tried to get in twice but he couldn’t pass the examinations.”
“Is that so?” the man said vaguely. “Well, I was mighty sorry to hear about his death. Old Ben was one fine boy!”
Nothing was said for a moment.
“I’ll tell you how fine he was,” Mr. Flood, who had been wheezing with closed eyes, now grunted suddenly, glaring solemnly about him with an air of brutal earnestness. “Now I think I knew that boy about as well as any man alive — he worked for me for almost fifteen years — started out when he was ten years old as a route-boy on The Courier and kept right on working for my paper until just a year or two before he died! And I’m here to tell you,” he wheezed solemnly, “that they don’t come any better than Ben!” Here he glowered around him pugnaciously as if the character of a dead saint had been called in question. “Now he wasn’t one of your big talkers who’d promise everything and know nothing. Ben was a do-er, not a talker. You could depend on him,” said Mr. Flood, hoarsely and impressively. “When he told you he’d do a thing, you’d know it was going to get done! As regular as a clock and as steady as the day is long! And as quiet a fellow as you ever saw,” said Mr. Flood. “That was Ben for you! Am I right?” he demanded, suddenly turning to the boy. “Was that Ben?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered. “That was Ben.”
“And until you asked him something he’d go for days at a time without speaking to you, but I knew he didn’t mean anything by it, it was just his way. He believed in tending to his own business and he expected every one else to do the same.” And for a moment, exhausted by these eulogies, he wheezed rapidly.
“Well, the world would be a lot better off if there were more like him,” the pompous, swarthy little man now said virtuously, as if this sentiment expressed his own pious belief and practice. “There are too many people sticking their noses in other people’s business, as it is.”
“Well, they didn’t stick their noses in Ben’s business,” said Mr. Flood with grim emphasis, “not after the first time, anyway. But they didn’t come any better than that boy. I couldn’t have thought more of him if he’d been my own son,” he concluded piously and then gasped stertorously, lifted his cigar slowly to his lips with the thick, gouty tenderness that characterized all his movements and for a moment puffed slowly, wheezing reflectively over it.
“Not that he was ever much like a boy,” he grunted suddenly, with a surprising flash of insight. “He was always more like an old man — didn’t ever seem to be a kid like the others. Why,” suddenly he chuckled with a phlegmy hoarseness, “I remember when he first began to come down there in the morning as a carrier, the other kids all called him ‘Pop.’ That was Ben for you. Always had that scowl on his face, even when he was laughing — as serious and earnest as an old man. But he was one of the best — as good as they come.” Again he coughed chokingly, bent over with a painful grunt, and cleared his throat phlegmily into the polished brass spittoon beside him. Then, wheezing a little, he drew the wadded silk handkerchief from a side-pocket, wiped his mouth with it, raised himself up in his seat a little, and settled back slowly, tenderly, wheezing, with a sigh! Then for a moment he laboured painfully, eyes closed, with his rapid wheezing breath and finally, when it seemed he must be exhausted by his efforts and done with conversation for the evening, he wheezed faintly and unexpectedly.
“That was Ben.”
“Oh, I remember that boy now,” the swarthy pompous-looking man suddenly broke in with a flash of recollective inspiration —“Wasn’t Ben the boy who used to stand in the windows of The Courier offices when the World Series was being played, and post the score up on the score-board as they phoned it in to him?”
“Yes,” wheezed Mr. Flood, nodding heavily. “You got him now, all right. That was Ben.”
“I remember now,” the swarthy little man said thoughtfully, with a far-away look in his eye. “I was thinking about him the other day when I went by The Courier office. They were playing the Series then. They had another fellow in the window and I wondered what had become of him. So that was Ben?”
“Yes,” Mr. Flood wheezed hoarsely again. “That was Ben.”
For a moment as the gouty old rake had spoken of the boy’s dead brother, the boy had felt within him a sense of warmth: a wakening of dead time, a stir of grateful affection for the gross old man as if there might have been in this bloated carcass some trace of understanding for the dead boy of whom he spoke — an understanding faint and groping as a dog who bays the moon might have