Alice Adams--Booth Tarkington [112]
"I suppose it isn't, Mr. Lamb."
"No," he said. "It isn't. It's not the right way to look at anything. Yes, and your father knows it as well as I do, when he's in his right mind; and I expect that's one of the reasons he got so mad at me--but anyhow, I couldn't help thinking about how much all this thing HAD maybe meant to him;--as I say, it kind of stuck in my craw. I want you to tell him something from me, and I want you to go and tell him right off, if he's able and willing to listen. You tell him I got kind of a notion he was pushed into this thing by circumstances, and tell him I've lived long enough to know that circumstances can beat the best of us--you tell him I said 'the BEST of us.' Tell him I haven't got a bit of feeling against him--not any more--and tell him I came here to ask him not to have any against me."
"Yes, Mr. Lamb."
"Tell him I said----" The old man paused abruptly and Alice was surprised, in a dull and tired way, when she saw that his lips had begun to twitch and his eyelids to blink; but he recovered himself almost at once, and continued: "I want him to remember, 'Forgive us our transgressions, as we forgive those that transgress against us'; and if he and I been transgressing against each other, why, tell him I think it's time we QUIT such foolishness!"
He coughed again, smiled heartily upon her, and walked toward the door; then turned back to her with an exclamation: "Well, if I ain't an old fool!"
"What is it?" she asked.
"Why, I forgot what we were just talking about! Your father wants to settle for Walter's deficit. Tell him we'll be glad to accept it; but of course we don't expect him to clean the matter up until he's able to talk business again."
Alice stared at him blankly enough for him to perceive that further explanations were necessary. "It's like this," he said. "You see, if your father decided to keep his works going over yonder, I don't say but he might give us some little competition for a time, 'specially as he's got the start on us and about ready for the market. Then I was figuring we could use his plant--it's small, but it'd be to our benefit to have the use of it--and he's got a lease on that big lot; it may come in handy for us if we want to expand some. Well, I'd prefer to make a deal with him as quietly as possible---no good in every Tom, Dick and Harry hearing about things like this--but I figured he could sell out to me for a little something more'n enough to cover the mortgage he put on this house, and Walter's deficit, too--THAT don't amount to much in dollars and cents. The way I figure it, I could offer him about ninety-three hundred dollars as a total--or say ninety-three hundred and fifty-- and if he feels like accepting, why, I'll send a confidential man up here with the papers soon's your father's able to look 'em over. You tell him, will you, and ask him if he sees his way to accepting that figure?"
"Yes," Alice said; and now her own lips twitched, while her eyes filled so that she saw but a blurred image of the old man, who held out his hand in parting. "I'll tell him. Thank you."
He shook her hand hastily. "Well, let's just keep it kind of quiet," he said, at the door. "No good in every Tom, Dick and Harry knowing all what goes on in town! You telephone me when your papa's ready to go over the papers--and call me up at my house to-night, will you? Let me hear how he's feeling?"
"I will," she said, and through