The Forged Note Part 23

"Possibly."

He went out. About a half hour later he returned, looking downcast and sullen. He was silent for some minutes, and then said, as if addressing himself: "That n.i.g.g.a's crazy."

"Who's crazy?" Sidney inquired, looking up.

"That n.i.g.g.a lawyer."

"How do you figure that out?"

"I went in there, and spoke to him in regard to the divorce, and what do you think he wants for getting me one?"

"I haven't the faintest idea."

"Fifty dollars! What do you think of that for highway robbery?"

"Perhaps your case is a bit more complicated than the average, and, therefore, justifies a larger fee," Wyeth suggested.

"Aw, that what he said, too, but he's a blood sucker. He can't gouge me."

"Oh, well," said Wyeth in an off-hand manner, "you won't quibble on a matter of twenty-five dollars additional, when you are getting a good wife. Consider that as a treasure."

"Well, I don't care. If she's willing to pay half, I'll give the sucker fifty." Wyeth bestowed a terrible look upon him, whereupon Slim withered:

"Well, she'd be getting as much as I. So what's the difference?" he tried to argue. Wyeth continued to glare at him.

"The idea!" he declared presently, with undisguised contempt. "To wish a woman to pay for your release from another! I'm too shocked to say how ashamed I am of you!"

Slim laughed sheepishly.

"Twenty-five dollars for a pair of legs like you! If I were a woman, I wouldn't give twenty-five cents for you as you sit there now," Wyeth added, with subdued mirth.

The next day, his atmosphere had changed perceptibly. He was in an ugly humor. Presently he gave words to its cause.

"That n.i.g.g.a woman's fooling me, and I know it."

"What's the stew today?"

"She's got another n.i.g.g.a a-hangin' around her. I've been suspicioning it for some time."

"You're the limit."

"I gave her a ballin' out last night about it too."

Mrs. Lautier came in at this moment, and that was the end of it for awhile.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"_I'll Never be Anything But a Vagabond_"

Sidney Wyeth had about filled Attalia with _The Tempest_ by this time, and had antic.i.p.ated going to another city almost as large, about one hundred seventy miles west. He made known the fact to Slim, and suggested that he might leave him in charge of the office, if he did so.

As a precaution, or rather, to get some idea of his ability to dictate letters, he had him compose a few. When the typist handed them to him to be read, and he had done so, he decided to allow him to continue his canva.s.s, and to hire some one more proficient.

"Say," he cried the next day. "I've been thinking it over, and maybe I'll be going along with you."

"That so? Well, I do not see any reason in particular why you should not go."

"There's only one reason," he said thoughtfully.

"What is it?"

"Mrs. King."

"Oh! yes; that's so. When's the wedding going to be?"

He glared at Wyeth a second, and then exclaimed doggedly: "I'm not going to marry. I wouldn't marry the best woman in the world."

"From what you have told me, it seems that you _did_ marry the worst,"

laughed the other.

"I'll stay single henceforth, and be safe," he growled, and busied himself through some papers.

"Stay single, eh! And let the nice lady go without a husband. It's incredible that you can be so regardless!"

"I do not care to discuss marrying today," he muttered. "I've something better. It's a business proposition."

"Oh, I see. What is it this time? Going to buy the First National Bank or the Southern Railway?"

"Oh, you needn't try to kid me. Besides I have not asked you to come in, though if you did, you could pick up some big, quick money, if you were of a mind to be serious."

"Oh, well, if it doesn't take more than a million, I might be brought to consider it," Wyeth smiled, with a.s.sumed seriousness.

"I can see you laffing in your sleeve, so I don't tell you anything, you see!" He ended it angrily, and left the office.

It was too good though to keep to himself, so he told Mrs. Lautier, who in turn told it to Wyeth.

"Mr. Coleman had me write to Ames today, in regard to some song books, which he says he used to sell lots of," she said, when it was convenient.

Wyeth grunted.

"He is very much provoked at the way you treat him. He says, if you would go in with him, you and he could both make lots of money; but that you only laugh in your sleeve at everything he proposes," she went on, replete with gossip.

"He proposes many things," said Wyeth.

She giggled.