Part 14 (1/2)

A newsboy had thrust himself almost between them, yelling, ”Extry!

Secon' Extry. Extry, all about the horrable acciDENT. Extry!”

”Get out!” laughed Sheridan. ”Who wants to read about accidents? Get out!”

The boy moved away philosophically. ”Extry! Extry!” he shrilled. ”Three men killed! Extry! Millionaire killed! Two other men killed! Extry!

Extry!”

”Don't forget, Mr. Farver,” Sheridan completed his interrupted farewells. ”I'll come by to take you up to our house for dinner. I'll be here for you about half-past five to-morrow afternoon. Hope you 'njoyed the drive much as I have. Good night--good night!” He leaned back, speaking to the chauffer. ”Now you can take me around to the Central City barber-shop, boy. I want to get a shave 'fore I go up home.”

”Extry! Extry!” screamed the newsboys, zig-zagging among the crowds like bats in the dusk. ”Extry! All about the horrable acciDENT! Extry!” It struck Sheridan that the papers sent out too many ”Extras”; they printed ”Extras” for all sorts of petty crimes and casualties. It was a mistake, he decided, critically. Crying ”Wolf!” too often wouldn't sell the goods; it was bad business. The papers would ”make more in the long run,” he was sure, if they published an ”Extra” only when something of real importance happened.

”Extry! All about the hor'ble AX'nt! Extry!” a boy squawked under his nose, as he descended from the car.

”Go on away!” said Sheridan, gruffly, though he smiled. He liked to see the youngsters working so noisily to get on in the world.

But as he crossed the pavement to the brilliant gla.s.s doors of the barber-shop, a second newsboy grasped the arm of the one who had thus cried his wares.

”Say, Yallern,” said this second, hoa.r.s.e with awe, ”'n't chew know who that IS?”

”Who?”

”It's SHERIDAN!”

”Jeest!” cried the first, staring insanely.

At about the same hour, four times a week--Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sat.u.r.day--Sheridan stopped at this shop to be shaved by the head barber. The barbers were negroes, he was their great man, and it was their habit to give him a ”reception,” his entrance being always the signal for a flurry of jocular hospitality, followed by general excesses of briskness and gaiety. But it was not so this evening.

The shop was crowded. Copies of the ”Extra” were being read by men waiting, and by men in the latter stages of treatment. ”Extras” lay upon vacant seats and showed from the pockets of hanging coats.

There was a loud chatter between the pract.i.tioners and their rec.u.mbent patients, a vocal charivari which stopped abruptly as Sheridan opened the door. His name seemed to fizz in the air like the last sputtering of a firework; the barbers stopped shaving and clipping; lathered men turned their prostrate heads to stare, and there was a moment of amazing silence in the shop.

The head barber, nearest the door, stood like a barber in a tableau. His left hand held stretched between thumb and forefinger an elastic section of his helpless customer's cheek, while his right hand hung poised above it, the razor motionless. And then, roused from trance by the door's closing, he accepted the fact of Sheridan's presence. The barber remembered that there are no circ.u.mstances in life--or just after it--under which a man does not need to be shaved.

He stepped forward, profoundly grave. ”I be through with this man in the chair one minute, Mist' Sheridan,” he said, in a hushed tone. ”Yessuh.”

And of a solemn negro youth who stood by, gazing stupidly, ”You goin'

RESIGN?” he demanded in a fierce undertone. ”You goin' take Mist'

Sheridan's coat?” He sent an angry look round the shop, and the barbers, taking his meaning, averted their eyes and fell to work, the murmur of subdued conversation buzzing from chair to chair.

”You sit down ONE minute, Mist' Sheridan,” said the head barber, gently.

”I fix nice chair fo' you to wait in.”

”Never mind,” said Sheridan. ”Go on get through with your man.”

”Yessuh.” And he went quickly back to his chair on tiptoe, followed by Sheridan's puzzled gaze.

Something had gone wrong in the shop, evidently. Sheridan did not know what to make of it. Ordinarily he would have shouted a hilarious demand for the meaning of the mystery, but an inexplicable silence had been imposed upon him by the hush that fell upon his entrance and by the odd look every man in the shop had bent upon him.