Part 17 (1/2)
”As for you two,” he added, turning to us, but suddenly stopped ”hell, what's the use! Why should I bother with you? Do as you damned well please, and stay sick or die!”
He turned on his heel and walked out of the dining-rooue our pseudo-cleverness had released that I could scarcely speak My appetite was gone and I felt wretched To think of having been the cause of this unnecessary tongue-lashi+ng to the others! And I felt that ere, and justly, the target for their rather censorious eyes
”My God!” moaned my companionthat I ever do coht All my life I've been unlucky My mother died when I was seven, and my father's never had any use for me I started in three or four businesses four or five years ago, but none of theht My yacht burned last suued a list of ills that would have done honor to Job himself, and he orth nine millions, so I heard!
Two or three additional and a incidents, and I as in connection with our rides about the countryside was Culhane's attitude toward life and the natives and passing strangers as representing life Thus one day, as I recall very well, ere riding along a backwoods country road, very shadowy and branch-covered, a great company of us four abreast, when suddenly and after his very ht by fours!
Right dress! Face!” and presently ere all lined up in a row facing a greenshich had suddenly been revealed to the left and on which, and before a sentleman's stable, was stretched a plumber and his helper The former, a man of perhaps thirty-five, the latter a lad of, say, fourteen or fifteen, were both very gri sun, a little pot of lead on the stove being waited for, I presu his place at the head of the column, returned to the center nearest the plu us in a very clear voice, said:
”There you have it There's American labor for you, at its best--union labor, the poor, downtrodden workingman Look at hi plumber here,” and at that the latter stirred and sat up, scarcely even now grasping what it was all about, so suddenly had we descended upon him, ”earns or de little helper here has to have forty
They're working now They're waiting for that little bit of lead to boil, at a dollar an hour between the, either of 'em, until it does, and lead has to be well done, you know, before it can be used
”Well, now, these two here,” he continued, suddenly shi+fting his tone froine they are getting along,life a lot better for themselves, when they lie about this way and swindle another man out of his honest due in connection with the work he is paying for He can't help hi If he did he'd probably find what's wrong in there and fix it himself in three minutes But if he did that and the union heard of it they'd boycott him They'd come around and blackmail him, blow up his barn, or make him pay for the work he did himself I know 'em I have to deal with 'e his--lying on the grass at a dollar an hour
And they want five dollars a pound for every bit of lead they use If they forget anything and have to go back to town for it, you pay for it, at a dollar an hour They get on the job at nine and quit at four, in the country If you say anything, they quit altogether--they're _union_ laborers--and they won't let any one else do it, either Once they're on the job they have to rest every fewhas to boil, or they have to wait for so Isn't it wonderful! Isn't it beautiful! And all of us of course are ood as we are! If you work andto do you have to support 'eht! Forward!” and off we trotted, breaking into a headlong gallop a little farther on as if he wished to outrun thehim at the moment
The plumber and his assistant, fully awake now to the import of what had occurred, stared after us The journeyman plumber, as short and fat, sat and blinked At last he recovered his wits sufficiently to cry, ”Aw, go to hell, you ---- ---- ----!” but by that ti the road and I am not sure that Culhane even heard
Another day as ere riding along a road which led into a nearby city of, say, twenty thousand, we encountered a beer truck of great size and on its seat so large and ruddy and obese a Ger way and still not see It was very hot The Ger As we drew near, Culhane suddenly called a halt and, lining us up as was his rule, called to the horses of the breagon, who also obeyed his lusty ”Whoa!” The driver, froled curiosity and wonder
”Now, here's an illustration of what Iat all, ”when I say that the word ed in soup on that wagon-seat there--call that a man? And then call me one? Or a man like Charles A Dana? Or a man like General Grant? hell! Look at hi like that--call it a man if you want to--has any brains or that he's really any better than a pig in a sty? If you turn a horse out to shi+ft for hih to keep in condition; sa, a cat or a bird
But let one of these things, that soh money or a chance to stuff hi like that connects himself with one end of a beer hose and then he thinks he's all right He gets enough guts to start a sausage factory, and then he blows up, I suppose, or rots Think of it!
And we call hi and wholly unexpected harangue (I never saw him stop any one before), the heavy driver, who did not understand English very well, first gazed and then strained with his eyebrows, not being able quite to hter that finally set up in one place and another he began di made fun of, used as an unsatisfactory jest of some kind Finally his face clouded for a storrew redder ”_Donnervetter!_” he began gutturally to roar ”_Schweine hunde! Hunds knoche! Nach der polizei soll man reufen!_”
I for one pulled reat whip, and, charging savagely through us, drove on Culhane, having ave orders for our orderly formation oncephase of him was his opposition to and contempt for inefficiency of any kind If he asked you to do anything, no matter what, and you didn't at once leap to the task ready and willing and able so to do, he scarcely had words enough hich to express himself On one occasion, as I recall all too well, he took us for a drive in his tally-ho--one or two or three that he possessed--a great luhly lacquered, yelloheeled vehicle, to which he attached seven or eight or nine horses, I forget which This tally-ho ride was a regular Sunday , a call suddenly sounding frorounds somewhere at eleven or at two in the afternoon, ”Tally-ho at eleven-thirty” (or two-thirty, as the caseall the reins in his hands and perching hiuests beside him, all the rest croilly-nilly on the seats within and on top, he would carry us off, careening about the countrysideas liveried footmen or outriders and one of them perched up behind on the little seat, the technical na silver truulation blasts on which had to be exactly as iven no warning as to just when it was to be, there would be a ueur_ Sunday clothes, for Culhane would not endure any flaws in our appearance, and if ere not ready and waiting when one of his stable the vehicle up to the door at the appointed time he was absolutely furious
On the particular occasion I have in ood time, all spick and span and in our very best, shaved, powdered, hands appropriately gloved, our whiskers curled and parted, our shoes shi+ned, our hats brushed; and up in front was Culhane, gentle-tailed whip looped exactly as it should be, no doubt, ready to be flicked out over the farthest horse's head, and up behind was the trurand color, I forget which
But, as it turned out on this occasion, there had been a hitch at the last ular hostler or stableman who acted as footman extraordinary and trumpeter plenipotentiary, the one who could truly and ably blow this nificent horn, was sick or his mother was dead At any rate, there he wasn't And in order not to irritate Culhane, a second hostler had been dressed and given his seat and horn--only he couldn't blow it As we began to claentleular truh there was ht they could, but hesitated to assu the fuss and knowing perhaps that his substitute could not trurimly around and said, ”Say, do you mean to say there isn't any one back there who kno to blow that thing? What's theonly mumbled explanations from that quarter, called to another, ”How about you, Drewberry? Or you, Crashaw?”
All three apologized briskly They were terrified by the er to assu and assured us so volubly that unless soain waste one blank minute on a lot of blank-blank this and thats, that one youth, a rash young society somebody froht” that ”e it” He took a seat directly under the poh-ho!” Out the gate and down the road and up a nearby slope at a s cheerfully and possibly vainly about, for it was a bright day and a gay country Now the trumpeter, as is provided for on all such occasions, lifted the trurandiose ”ta-ra-ta-ta,” but to our grief and pain, although he got through fairly successfully on his first atteht hitch, a ”false crack,” as so up his lines and stiffening his back irritably at this flaw, said nothing For after all a poor trumpeter was better than none at all A little later, however, the truain, he called back, ”Well, what about the horn?
What about the horn? Can't you do so with it? Have you quit for the day?”
Up went the horn once un, but just at the critical point, and ere all ainst hope, as it were, that this tiracefully and co and disheartening squeak
It was pathetic, ghastly As one man ilted What would Culhane say to that? We were not long in doubt ”Great Christ!” he shouted, looking back and showing a countenance so black that it was positively terrifying ”Who did that? Throw him off! What do you think--that I want the whole country to know I', take it and blow it, for God's sake! I' to drive around here without a trumpeter!”