No one could say Dan underpaid or cheated any person with whom he had dealings. His store had an up-to-date, live air and one could find bargains and articles which had never been seen in former days. Also, when travelling men came to sell him and he entertained them at his attempted bachelor apartments, they would suggest a game of penny-ante and something to drink, and the boy would inform them with no shrinking indecision, “I was raised watching men make fools of themselves,” and bid them good night.
When he married Thurley Precore, the town gossiped, Dan would meet his match, and, in concluding their jeremiad, said they doubted whether Thurley would marry him after all, but if, for spite, he married Lorraine, who, goodness knows, would jump sky high if she ever had the chance, Dan Birge would be the same bully his father had been to his wife—there never was a Birge who didn’t have to boss the job or quit!
None of this bothered Dan, not even the vituperation of himself when he encouraged a family of Sicilian bootmakers to rent one of his cottages and began to _pay to have his shoes shined_. Nothing bothered Dan except the fear lest Thurley should not marry him; that only bothered him at stray moments when a wilful impulse led her to break an engagement with him and run off to sing at some entertainment at South Wales.
As he strode along the main street, Zaza heeling him, he whistled “Bonnie Sweet Bessie” and shouted out a hullo to every one he passed, regardless of age or rank. There was something delightfully irrepressible about Dan. Perhaps the fact that every girl in town was or had been or was planning to be in love with him might have aided his buoyancy, as well as the knowledge that the older generation still looked at him with horrified disapproval and yet were powerless to control so much as a single one of Zaza’s barks.
He made his way up the winding path leading to the burial ground, one of those picturesque spots with weeping willows, wild roses and a tottering old fence, and scraggly berry bushes growing insolently without.
“Oh, Thurley,” he began, calling before he reached the summit.
“Ship ahoy!” sang back a strong, sweet voice. Presently he came upon a tall, blue-eyed girl with thick braids of dark hair. She was sitting under a willow tree, a book thrown carelessly at one side.