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Another of the men sat down close by, and Grenfell waved his hand to the others as they moved away. "Bless you! You're good boys," he said. The man who remained grinned at Weston. "We've packed the blame old deadbeat 'most three miles. If Tom hadn't promised to see him through I'd have felt tempted to dump him into the river. The boys were trying to fill him up at the Sprotson House."
"Don't call me John. You are a hypocrite and a deadbeat. Yes, you have sung like a cricket and I have paid dearly for your music. Don't say a word to me; don't open your lying mouth, but get out of this yard as soon as your wretched legs can carry you, and get off that place at once." The Major turned his back upon him, and the old fellow tottered to the gate.
So their arms went up and strained high above their heads, as if eager to show their desire to comply without reservation to the unspoken command. Morgan had not said a word. The bartender, accepting the situation as generally inclusive, put his hands up along with his deadbeat patrons.
"And so the book you handed me, to plight our troth," with ire said she, "you bought from Charlie here on tick? Skidoo! A deadbeat makes me sick! I'll never marry any jay who can't dig up two cents a day!" "I have a bundle in the bank," said Charles, as on his knee he sank, "and all of it is yours to blow, so let us to the altar go."
There was a howl of approval from the cluster of men who sat on a rough fir table; but the man behind the bar raised an expostulating hand. "Boys," he said, "you have got to be reasonable. I bought that horse. If the deadbeat who made the deal with me wants it back, all he has to do is to produce the money." Then Grenfell, who leaned on the table, drew himself up, and made a gesture of protest.
In a very short time the rumor he meant to start would travel about the neighborhood, and there was enough truth in it to make it dangerous and hard to deny. "Charnock's deadbeat. He's as poor as you." "His wife has plenty dollars, anyhow." "That's so, but she's not going to give him any more," Wilkinson rejoined. "He married Sadie for her money, and now he hasn't sense enough to stick to her."
As soon as things were in this forward state, I returned to the verandah, and found our swagger guest drawing a very long breath after a good nip of pure whisky which F had promptly administered to him. "I'm fair clemmed wi' cold and wet," the swagger said, still bundled up in his comparatively sheltered corner. "I've been out on the hills the whole night, and I am deadbeat.
He was as ragged and unkempt as ever. "I've been called a deadbeat, and I want it taken back," he said. "It's slander. I'm a celebrated mineralogist and assayer. Tell you how the deep leads run; analyze you anything. For example, we'll proceed to put this hotel-keeper in the crucible, and see what we get. It's thirty parts hoggish self-sufficiency, and ten parts ignorance.
He was himself a sort of Coleridge without the piety, with the same keen penetrating critical intelligence, the same lovely opium-shadowed dreams, and, alas, with something of the same reputation as a deadbeat.
Only the time and the place were his to-night, it seemed.... "I," said the girl, "belong to the useless classes. I don't pay my way. I'm a social deadbeat. So Mr. Pond told me the other night. You must meet Mr. Pond, Hugo, the Director of the Settlement you gave all that money to last year. He can be as horrid as anybody on earth, but is really nice in a rude interesting way.
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