stories was always the same, but the setting shifted about here and
there, and this one had to do with a county election in which, the Major
said, the Republicans and negroes had gone the limit trying to swindle
the Democrats out of the esteemed offices.
"And I said, 'You'--the ladies will excuse me, I'm sure--'You lying
rascal,' s' I, 'don't you dare to contradict me! You're all tarred with
the same pitch,' s' I. 'Everything you touch turns corrupt and rotten.
Look at Henry G. Surface,' s' I. 'The finest fellow God ever made, till
the palsied hand of Republicanism fell upon him, and now cankering and
rotting in jail--'"
"But Henry G. Surface wasn't rotting in jail in 1875," said William
Klinker, and boldly winked at the little Doctor.
The Major, disconcerted for an instant by his anachronism, recovered
superbly. "My vision, sir, was prophetic. The stain was upon him. The
cloven foot had already been betrayed...."
"And who was Henry G. Surface?" inquired Mr. Queed.
"What! You haven't heard that infamous story!" cried the Major, with
the surprised delight of the inveterate raconteur who has unexpectedly
stumbled upon an audience.
A chair-leg scraped, and Professor Nicolovius was standing, bowing in
his sardonic way to Mrs. Paynter.
"Since I have happened to hear it often, madam, through Major Brooke's
tireless kindness, you will perhaps be so good as to excuse me."
And he stalked out of the room, head up, his auburn goatee stabbing the
atmosphere before him, in rather a heavy silence.
"Pish!" snapped the Major, when the door had safely shut. And tapping
his forehead significantly, he gave his head a few solemn wags and
launched upon the worn biography of Henry G. Surface.
Tattered with much use as the story is, and was, the boarders listened
with a perennial interest while Major Brooke expounded the familiar
details. His wealth of picturesque language we may safely omit, and
briefly remind the student of the byways of history how Henry G. Surface
found himself, during the decade following Appomattox, with his little
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