Part 22 (1/2)
”You can see yourself, Mr. Ma.s.sey,” urged Frank Bowman, helping Drugg into a chair, ”that this is no ordinary drunk.”
”No,” Ma.s.sey said reflectively, and now looked with some pity at the helpless man. ”Alcohol never did exhilarate Hopewell. It just dopes him. It does some folks. And it doesn't take much to do it.”
”Then Hopewell Drugg has been in the habit of drinking?” asked Bowman, in surprise. ”You have seen him this way before?”
”No, he hasn't. Never mind what these chattering old women in town say about him now. I never saw him this way but once before. That was when he had been given some brandy. 'Member that time, Cross, when we all went fis.h.i.+n' down to Pine Cove? Gos.h.!.+ Must have been all of twenty years ago.”
All that Mr. Cross Moore emitted was a grunt, but he nodded.
”Hopewell cut himself--'bad--on a rusty bailer. He fell on it and liked ter bled to death. You know, Cross, we gave him brandy and he was dead to the world for hours.”
”Yes,” said Mr. Moore. ”What did he want to drink now for?”
”I do not believe he knowingly took anything intoxicating,” Janice said earnestly. ”They have been playing tricks down there at the tavern on him.”
”Tricks?” repeated Mr. Moore curiously.
”Yes, sir,” said Janice. ”Men mean enough to sell liquor are mean enough to do anything. And not only those who actually sell the stuff are to blame in a case like this, but those who encourage the sale of it.”
Mr. Cross Moore uncrossed his long legs and crossed them slowly the other way. He always had a humorous twinkle in his shrewd gray eye.
He had it now.
”Meaning me?” he drawled, eyeing the indignant young girl just as he would look at an angry kitten.
”Yes, Mr. Moore,” said Janice, with dignity. ”A word from you, and Lem Parraday would stop selling liquor. He would have to. And without your encouragement he would never have entered into the nefarious traffic. Polktown is being injured daily by that bar at the Inn, and you more than any other one person are guilty of this crime against the community!”
Mr. Cross Moore did not change his att.i.tude. Janice was panting and half crying now. The selectman said, slowly:
”I might say that you are an impudent girl.”
”I guess I am,” Janice admitted tearfully. ”But I mean every word I have said, and I won't take it back.”
”You and I have been good friends, Janice Day,” continued Mr. Moore in his drawling way. ”I never like to quarrel with my friends.”
”You can be no friend of mine, Mr. Moore, till the sale of liquor stops in this town, and you are converted,” declared Janice, wiping her eyes, but speaking quite as bravely as before.
”Then it is war between us?” he asked, yet not lightly.
”Yes, sir,” sobbed Janice. ”I always have liked you, Mr. Cross Moore.
But now I can't bear even to look at you! I don't approve of you at all--not one little bit!”
CHAPTER XV
AND NOW IT IS DISTANT TROUBLE
Mr. Ma.s.sey had been attending to the overcome Hopewell Drugg. He mixed him something and forced it down his throat. Then he whispered to Frank Bowman:
”It was brandy. I can smell it on his breath. Pshaw! Hopewell's a harmless critter. Why couldn't they let him alone?”
Frank had taken up the violin. The moisture had got to it a little on the back and the young man thoughtlessly held it near the fire to dry.