The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner [86]
“I dont expect you to do anything,” he says. “They changed that law making folks play the cotton market.”
“They have?” I says. “I hadn’t heard. They must have sent the news out over the Western Union.”
I went back to the store. Thirteen points. Dam if I believe anybody knows anything about the dam thing except the ones that sit back in those New York offices and watch the country suckers come up and beg them to take their money. Well, a man that just calls shows he has no faith in himself, and like I say if you aren’t going to take the advice, what’s the use in paying money for it. Besides, these people are right up there on the ground; they know everything that’s going on. I could feel the telegram in my pocket. I’d just have to prove that they were using the telegraph company to defraud. That would constitute a bucket shop. And I wouldn’t hesitate that long, either. Only be damned if it doesn’t look like a company as big and rich as the Western Union could get a market report out on time. Half as quick as they’ll get a wire to you saying Your account closed out. But what the hell do they care about the people. They’re hand in glove with that New York crowd. Anybody could see that.
When I came in Earl looked at his watch. But he didn’t say anything until the customer was gone. Then he says,
“You go home to dinner?”
“I had to go to the dentist,” I says because it’s not any of his business where I eat but I’ve got to be in the store with him all the afternoon. And with his jaw running off after all I’ve stood. You take a little two by four country storekeeper like I say it takes a man with just five hundred dollars to worry about it fifty thousand dollars’ worth.
“You might have told me,” he says. “I expected you back right away.”
“I’ll trade you this tooth and give you ten dollars to boot, any time,” I says. “Our agreement was an hour for dinner,” I says, “and if you dont like the way I do, you know what you can do about it.”
“I’ve known that some time,” he says. “If it hadn’t been for your mother I’d have done it before now, too. She’s a lady I’ve got a lot of sympathy for, Jason. Too bad some other folks I know cant say as much.”
“Then you can keep it,” I says. “When we need any sympathy I’ll let you know in plenty of time.”
“I’ve protected you about that business a long time, Jason,” he says.
“Yes?” I says, letting him go on. Listening to what he would say before I shut him up.
“I believe I know more about where that automobile came from than she does.”
“You think so, do you?” I says. “When are you going to spread the news that I stole it from my mother?”
“I dont say anything,” he says. “I know you have her power of attorney. And I know she still believes that thousand dollars is in this business.”
“All right,” I says. “Since you know so much, I’ll tell you a little more: go to the bank and ask them whose account I’ve been depositing a hundred and sixty dollars on the first of every month for twelve years.”
“I dont say anything,” he says. “I just ask you to be a little more careful after this.”
I never said anything more. It doesn’t do any good. I’ve found that when a man gets into a rut the best thing you can do is let him stay there. And when a man gets it in his head that he’s got to tell something on you for your own good, goodnight. I’m glad I haven’t got the sort of conscience I’ve got to nurse like a sick puppy all the time. If I’d ever be as careful over anything as he is to keep his little shirt tail full of business from making him more than eight percent. I reckon he thinks they’d get him on the usury law if he netted more than eight percent. What the hell chance has a man got, tied down in a town like this and to a business like this. Why I could take his business in one year and fix him so he’d never have to work again, only he’d give it all away to the church or something. If there’s one thing gets under my skin, it’s a dam hypocrite. A man that thinks anything he dont understand all about must be crooked and that first chance he gets he’s morally bound to tell the third