Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/555

Rh had owned a glittering store on the main street. Unhappily, Lambeth proved a rogue; and the captain's prospects were cut down by a black frost. He would not take advantage of the bankrupt law which was in force in the seventies; he would not take a clerkship; he set his soft hat a little more jauntily on the side of his head, walked a little more carefully—the captain had an artificial leg—to the recorder's office, mortgaged his house, paid his creditors most that was due them, and started his little shop. His wife, being a wise young woman, did not send away her "girl" but went into the shop and kept her husband's books, was clerk, collector, and general manager. All these things the neighbors knew because the captain liked to tell of them; and how he had paid off every dollar that he owed.

"And I've never owed a dollar over night since," he frequently would add, chuckling. He had a jolly chuckle; and was a man who laughed a good deal and had a reputation in a small way as a story-teller at all the G. A. R. camp fires.

When the matter of paving Lincoln Street for two blocks came before the city council the captain was stirred to the soul. He could be heard making speeches at the top of his voice all along the sidewalk. He carried around the petition against paving, which every property owner on the street signed.

Nevertheless, there was a brick barricade. The brick came in the morning; at noon a small array of workingmen (mostly in the decline of life), headed by a vigorous young German-American who knew how to swear, began to dig up the macadam of the roadway and slash the roots of the young maples on the boulevard. Lincoln Street is far enough up-town for the men to stay all day away from home. Not until nearly six did any householder, save the captain, appear on the scene of devastation. From six until half-past six they came. By half-past seven, the dinners of the new Colonial mansions and the suppers of the brown houses with the modest ells and the piazzas had been finished, and most of the dwellers of that quarter of Lincoln Street were out on the sidewalk, exchanging indignation. The street gang had gone; but Patsy O'Brien, whose teams were hauling dirt from the north-west corner where a cellar was digging, explained the political situation. The captain, to whom the neighborhood looked for enlightenment in general on matters of local weight, was not visible. It was understood that he consulted a lawyer. Patsy, therefore, an old G. A. R. man and long-time crony of the captain, took care of the affair in his place. He was a thin, wiry Irishman, who shaved every morning scrupulously—except under his chin; whose fair skin had been burned a fine warm tint by the sun; who had shrewd, brilliant little eyes, and could still bite his pipe stem with his own sound, white teeth. To mark the distinction that he was a contractor and not a laborer, he always wore a suit of black cloth and a white shirt, but he showed that he was not proud by dispensing with the needless pomp of a coat and a cravat.

Patsy could see at least eight in his audience, and his eloquence had all the faucets turned on.

"Aw, 'tis a fright!" he exclaimed scornfully, "the strate is a fright, intirely. They passed it, last night, at the council—and, sure, they ain't losin' no toime. The captain was there, and he could hardly contain himsilf. I belave he wanted to git at Alderman Blaize wid his own hands. But what's the good? The captain's a fighter, but he's licked this toime. 'Sure,' says I, 'if yous was to kill the dom thafe'—begging the ladies' pardon for repating the worrd—