"
"Well," I says, "mebby it does and mebby it
don't. But HE ain't my father, nohow. And he
ain't been getting no more'n his come-uppings."
"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," the big
man remarks, very serious. Hank, he riz up then,
and he says:
"Mister, be you a preacher? 'Cause if you be,
the sooner you have druv on, the better fur ye.
I got a grudge agin all preachers."
That feller, he jest looks Hank over ca'am and
easy and slow before he answers, and he wrinkles
up his face like he never seen anything like Hank
before. Then he fetches a kind o' aggervating smile,
and he says:
"Beneath a shady chestnut tree
The village blacksmith stands.
The smith, a pleasant soul is he
With warts upon his hands--"
He stares at Hank hard and solemn and serious
while he is saying that poetry at him. Hank
fidgets and turns his eyes away. But the feller
touches him on the breast with his finger, and makes
him look at him.
"My honest friend," says the feller, "I am NOT
a preacher. Not right now, anyhow. No! My
mission is spreading the glad tidings of good health.
Look at me," and he swells his chest up, and keeps
a-holt of Hank's eyes with his'n. "You behold
before you the discoverer, manufacturer, and
proprietor of Siwash Indian Sagraw, nature's own
remedy for Bright's Disease, rheumatism, liver and
kidney trouble, catarrh, consumption, bronchitis,
ring-worm, erysipelas, lung fever, typhoid, croup,
dandruff, stomach trouble, dyspepsia--" And
they was a lot more of 'em.
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