Bargain Day At Tutt House

He retreated behind the rough wooden counter that did duty as a desk, slammed open the flimsy, paper-bound "cash book" that served as a register, and planted his elbows uncompromisingly on either side of it.

"Let 'em bring in their own traps," he commented, and Aunt Margaret fled, ashamed and conscience-smitten, to the kitchen. It seemed awful.

The first one out of the coach was the husband of the brunette matron, and, proceeding under instructions, he waited neither for luggage nor women folk, but hurried straight into the Tutt House. The other man would have been neck and neck with him in the race, if it had not been that he paused to seize two suitcases and had the misfortune to drop one, which burst open and scattered a choice assortment of lingerie from one end of the dingy coach to the other.

In the confusion of rescuing the fluffery, the owner of the suitcase had to sacrifice her hauteur and help her husband and son block up the aisle, while the other matron had the ineffable satisfaction of being kept waiting, at last being enabled to say, sweetly and with the most polite consideration:

"Will you kindly allow me to pass?"

The blonde matron raised up and swept her skirts back perfectly flat. She was pale but collected. Her husband was pink but collected. Her son was crimson and uncollected. The brunette daughter could not have found an eye anywhere in his countenance as she rustled out after her mother.

"I do hope that Belmont has been able to secure choice quarters," the triumphing matron remarked as her daughter joined her on the ground. "This place looked so very small that there can scarcely be more than one comfortable suite in it."

It was a vital thrust. Only a splendidly cultivated self-control prevented the blonde matron from retaliating upon the unfortunate who had muddled things. Even so, her eyes spoke whole shelves of volumes.

The man who first reached the register wrote, in a straight black scrawl, "J. Belmont Van Kamp, wife, and daughter." There being no space left for his address, he put none down.

"I want three adjoining rooms, en suite if possible," he demanded.

"Three!" exclaimed Uncle Billy, scratching his head. "Won't two do ye? I ain't got but six bedrooms in th' house. Me an' Marg't sleeps in one, an' we're a-gittin' too old fer a shake-down on th' floor. I'll have t' save one room fer th' driver, an' that leaves four. You take two now---"

Mr. Van Kamp cast a hasty glance out of the window, The other man was getting out of the coach. His own wife was stepping on the porch.

"What do you ask for meals and lodging until this time to-morrow?" he interrupted.

The decisive moment had arrived. Uncle Billy drew a deep breath.

"Two dollars a head!" he defiantly announced. There! It was out! He wished Margaret had stayed to hear him say it.

The guest did not seem to be seriously shocked, and Uncle Billy was beginning to be sorry he had not said three dollars, when Mr. Van Kamp stopped the landlord's own breath.

"I'll give you fifteen dollars for the three best rooms in the house," he calmly said, and Landlord Tutt gasped as the money fluttered down under his nose.

"Jis' take yore folks right on up, Mr. Kamp," said Uncle Billy, pouncing on the money. "Th' rooms is th' three right along th' hull front o' th' house. I'll be up and make on a fire in a minute. Jis' take th' Jonesville Banner an' th' Uticky Clarion along with ye."

As the swish of skirts marked the passage of the Van Kamps up the wide hall stairway, the other party swept into the room.

The man wrote, in a round flourish, "Edward Eastman Ellsworth, wife, and son."

"I'd like three choice rooms, en suite," he said.

"Gosh!" said Uncle Billy, regretfully. "That's what Mr. Kamp wanted, fust off, an' he got it. They hain't but th' little room over th' kitchen left. I'll have to put you an' your wife in that, an' let your boy sleep with th' driver."

The consternation in the Ellsworth party was past calculating by any known standards of measurement. The thing was an outrage! It was not to be borne! They would not submit to it!

Uncle Billy, however, secure in his mastery of the situation, calmly quartered them as he had said. "An' let 'em splutter all they want to," he commented comfortably to himself.

IV

The Ellsworths were holding a family indignation meeting on the broad porch when the Van Ramps came contentedly down for a walk, and brushed by them with unseeing eyes.

"It makes a perfectly fascinating suite," observed Mrs. Van Kamp, in a pleasantly conversational tone that could be easily overheard by anyone impolite enough to listen. "That delightful old-fashioned fireplace in the middle apartment makes it an ideal sitting-room, and the beds are so roomy and comfortable."

"I just knew it would be like this!" chirruped Miss Evelyn. "I remarked as we passed the place, if you will remember, how charming it would be to stop in this dear, quaint old inn over night. All my wishes seem to come true this year."

These simple and, of course, entirely unpremeditated remarks were as vinegar and wormwood to Mrs. Ellsworth, and she gazed after the retreating Van Kamps with a glint in her eye that would make one understand Lucretia Borgia at last.

Her son also gazed after the retreating Van Kamp. She had an exquisite figure, and she carried herself with a most delectable grace. As the party drew away from the inn she dropped behind the elders and wandered off into a side path to gather autumn leaves.

Ralph, too, started off for a walk, but naturally not in the same direction.

"Edward!" suddenly said Mrs. Ellsworth. "I want you to turn those people out of that suite before night!"

"Very well," he replied with a sigh, and got up to do it. He had wrecked a railroad and made one, and had operated successful corners in nutmegs and chicory. No task seemed impossible. He walked in to see the landlord.

"What are the Van Kamps paying you for those three rooms?" he asked.

"Fifteen dollars," Uncle Billy informed him, smoking one of Mr. Van Kamp's good cigars and twiddling his thumbs in huge content.

"I'll give you thirty for them. Just set their baggage outside and tell them the rooms are occupied."

"No sir-ree!" rejoined Uncle Billy. "A bargain's a bargain, an' I allus stick to one I make."

Mr. Ellsworth withdrew, but not defeated. He had never supposed that such an absurd proposition would be accepted. It was only a feeler, and he had noticed a wince of regret in his landlord. He sat down on the porch and lit a strong cigar. His wife did not bother him. She gazed complacently at the flaming foliage opposite, and allowed him to think. Getting impossible things was his business in life, and she had confidence in him.

"I want to rent your entire house for a week," he announced to Uncle Billy a few minutes later. It had occurred to him that the flood might last longer than they anticipated.

Uncle Billy's eyes twinkled.

"I reckon it kin be did," he allowed. "I reckon a ho-tel man's got a right to rent his hull house ary minute."

"Of course he has. How much do you want?"

Uncle Billy had made one mistake in not asking this sort of folks enough, and he reflected in perplexity.

"Make me a offer," he proposed. "Ef it hain't enough I'll tell ye. You want to rent th' hull place, back lot an' all?"

"No, just the mere house. That will be enough," answered the other with a smile. He was on the point of offering a hundred dollars, when he saw the little wrinkles about Mr. Tutt's eyes, and he said seventy-five.

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