Then he went into a lot of particulars, and I begun to think he was drawing a long-bow, and meant to make his bill accordingly. So I kept pretty cool; but the fellow's bill didn't amount to anything hardly--said I might pay him after I got going; young chap, and pretty easy;but every word he said was gospel. Well, I ain't a-going to brag up my paint; I don't suppose you came here to hear me blow""Oh yes, I did," said Bartley. "That's what I want.
Tell all there is to tell, and I can boil it down afterward.
A man can't make a greater mistake with a reporter than to hold back anything out of modesty. It may be the very thing we want to know. What we want is the whole truth;and more; we've got so much modesty of our own that we can temper almost any statement.
Lapham looked as if he did not quite like this tone, and he resumed a little more quietly. Oh, there isn't really very much more to say about the paint itself.
But you can use it for almost anything where a paint is wanted, inside or out. It'll prevent decay, and it'll stop it, after it's begun, in tin or iron. You can paint the inside of a cistern or a bath-tub with it, and water won't hurt it;and you can paint a steam-boiler with it, and heat won't.
You can cover a brick wall with it, or a railroad car, or the deck of a steamboat, and you can't do a better thing for either.""Never tried it on the human conscience, I suppose,"suggested Bartley.
"No, sir," replied Lapham gravely. "I guess you want to keep that as free from paint as you can, if you want much use of it.
I never cared to try any of it on mine." Lapham suddenly lifted his bulk up out of his swivel-chair, and led the way out into the wareroom beyond the office partitions, where rows and ranks of casks, barrels, and kegs stretched dimly back to the rear of the building, and diffused an honest, clean, wholesome smell of oil and paint.
They were labelled and branded as containing each so many pounds of Lapham's Mineral Paint, and each bore the mystic devices, N.L.f. 1835--S.L.t. 1855. "There!" said Lapham, kicking one of the largest casks with the toe of his boot, "that's about our biggest package; and here," he added, laying his hand affectionately on the head of a very small keg, as if it were the head of a child, which it resembled in size, "this is the smallest. We used to put the paint on the market dry, but now we grind every ounce of it in oil--very best quality of linseed oil--and warrant it.
We find it gives more satisfaction. Now, come back to the office, and I'll show you our fancy brands."It was very cool and pleasant in that dim wareroom, with the rafters showing overhead in a cloudy perspective, and darkening away into the perpetual twilight at the rear of the building; and Bartley had found an agreeable seat on the head of a half-barrel of the paint, which he was reluctant to leave. But he rose and followed the vigorous lead of Lapham back to the office, where the sun of a long summer afternoon was just beginning to glare in at the window. On shelves opposite Lapham's desk were tin cans of various sizes, arranged in tapering cylinders, and showing, in a pattern diminishing toward the top, the same label borne by the casks and barrels in the wareroom.
Lapham merely waved his hand toward these; but when Bartley, after a comprehensive glance at them, gave his whole attention to a row of clean, smooth jars, where different tints of the paint showed through flawless glass, Lapham smiled, and waited in pleased expectation.
"Hello!" said Bartley. "That's pretty!"
"Yes," assented Lapham, "it is rather nice.
It's our latest thing, and we find it takes with customers first-rate. Look here!" he said, taking down one of the jars, and pointing to the first line of the label.
Bartley read, "THE PERSIS BRAND," and then he looked at Lapham and smiled.
"After HER, of course," said Lapham. "Got it up and put the first of it on the market her last birthday.
She was pleased."
"I should think she might have been," said Bartley, while he made a note of the appearance of the jars.
"I don't know about your mentioning it in your interview,"said Lapham dubiously.
"That's going into the interview, Mr. Lapham, if nothing else does. Got a wife myself, and I know just how you feel."It was in the dawn of Bartley's prosperity on the Boston Events, before his troubles with Marcia had seriously begun.
"Is that so?" said Lapham, recognising with a smile another of the vast majority of married Americans;a few underrate their wives, but the rest think them supernal in intelligence and capability. "Well," he added, "we must see about that. Where'd you say you lived?""We don't live; we board. Mrs. Nash, 13 Canary Place.""Well, we've all got to commence that way,"suggested Lapham consolingly.
"Yes; but we've about got to the end of our string.
I expect to be under a roof of my own on Clover Street before long. I suppose," said Bartley, returning to business, "that you didn't let the grass grow under your feet much after you found out what was in your paint-mine?""No, sir," answered Lapham, withdrawing his eyes from a long stare at Bartley, in which he had been seeing himself a young man again, in the first days of his married life.
"I went right back to Lumberville and sold out everything, and put all I could rake and scrape together into paint.
And Mis' Lapham was with me every time. No hang back about HER. I tell you she was a WOMAN!"Bartley laughed. "That's the sort most of us marry.""No, we don't," said Lapham. "Most of us marry silly little girls grown up to LOOK like women.""Well, I guess that's about so," assented Bartley, as if upon second thought.
