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It was not until evening that, with the session of the wonted parliament around the Cosmopolitan bar, the proposition to inter Professor Jovanny with civic honors took shape. The full quorum was present in that hospitable retreat. Distilled liquors flowed, albeit no dance was forthcoming. Rioba Jack rose to address the company. āIt appears to me,ā said that gentleman, covering both his awkwardness as orator and his mouth with a tumbler, when desirableāāit appears to me that we had oughtāthat in view of his position in Yellow Bearāthat we had ought to give Professor Jovanny his funeral.ā āMy sentiments,ā interrupted an approving voice, promptly. Rioba Jack continued: āHe haināt left nothinā worth chattering about, except the gal, and all gals aināt cash. Jovanny was a artist way above tide-levelāthere aināt no mistake about that. Talk about your celluloid-clawyers! Talk about your Dumb Toms! Talk of yourāof your scales,ā the Rioba concluded hastily, suddenly realizing that he was drifting among breakers in any rash employment of technical terms, āunless a man had heerd Jovanny rattlinā āWhere was Moses,ā in this here hotel, he hadnāt never heerd no genuine tuninā up at all. I say, we had ought to give Jovanny a big time.ā
The chorus of approval came fortissimo.
āI move that Rioba Jack be appāinted a committee of one to wait on deceased and ask his gal if the notion jumps with her feelinās, like as it were.ā This suggestion from a distant quarter, however mixed, was to the point. It was carried. Every man present felt equal to himself undertaking this preliminary; but this was no time for permitting personal interests to dam the current of popular feeling. Rioba Jack strode from the barroom. Applause and suggestion swelled behind his back. āMake it a square out-and-out show.ā āBorry the Methodistās gospel stamp.ā āPay an entrance fee for the benefit of the gal.ā āEmbalm the corpse!ā and the like, were distinguishable among these. High over all the tumult broke the stentorian voice of Dennison of the Cosmopolitan, commanding order and enforcing the same by the handle of his knife applied vigorously to a tumbler. Finally some settled plan of action crystalized. A āsquare funeralā Professor Jovanny should have. His body should ālay in stateā for the whole of the ensuing dayāon the piano in the adjoining dance-roomāthat piano which had so often been shaken to its center beneath the defunctās nimble fingers. āMisterāsā proposal of an admission feeāfor gentlemen onlyāwas accepted. The entire male population of Yellow Bear City was to be duly invited to appear and āview the remainsā for the modest sum of one dollar, during any hour of the morrowās daylight most suited to individual convenience. A brass band had not yet been organised in Yellow Bear, or it would unquestionably have been provided. A free bar wasāof course. At nightfall Professor Jovanny should be buried with all the mortuary pomp practicable.
Rioba Jack was greeted eagerly upon his return. āItās all right,ā responded that worthy, composedly resuming his seat. āGo ahead, all hands! I didnāt see the gal, but Big Jinny and Pearl Kate are settinā round with her, and they give her the message. Jinny says its all right. We can go ahead.ā
The Rioba was fully posted on the progress of affairs during his absence. The idea of Professor Jovannyās ālaying in stateā upon the old piano alone drew forth his contempt in round terms; which, although they betrayed surprising acquaintance with scriptural phraseology, were by no means pious. āDāā any such half-way style as that,ā he ended, explosively; āWhat I say is, buy the old tune-box from Dennison and bury Jovanny in it!ā The uproar that greeted this novel proposal, like Prosperoās tale, might have cured deafness. Naturally, each person present promptly claimed to have thought of it himselfāand rejected it unuttered. Dennison announced his entire willingness to dispose of the widowed instrument at a reasonable figure. There was a unanimous rush into the long dance-room adjoining. Away flew the emblems of grief dangling about the object of special inspection. Its cover was laid off, bodily, in a twinkling. Its length, its depth, its available breadth and strength of bottom were excitedly ascertained. It was bought within ten minutes by a lavish collection, Dennison mentioning a price that certainly showed him to be an astute man in recognizing a commercial opportunity. Thereupon did the whole roomful resolve itself into a committee on destruction. Alas! what soft-hearted story-teller can dwell upon the unholy hammering and cleaving, the ruthless hacking and smashing which ended in making visible for weeks thereafter in the back yard of the Cosmopolitan a hideous wreck of tangled steel wire, white and black keys and splinters of sounding-boardāin a word, the entrails of the murdered piano?
By ten oāclock the work was fairly done. The crowd had departed, and only Dennison, Rioba Jack and āMisterā now remained in the long dance-room. Dennison was smoking, as he leaned against one end of his late piece of property. āMister,ā with bared arms, diligently rubbed oil over sundry scratches upon its case. Rioba Jack was strengthening with hammer and nails some weak spot beneath. The flaring light from a couple of oil lamps on the side of the wall brought out strong shadows on the three dark, heavily-mustached faces. Neither of the trio broke the silence for a few moments. Presently the Rioba emerged from his close quarters and began hammering at the end opposite to Dennison. He looked up. āWhatās goinā to become of the gal?ā he queried, abruptly; āYellow Bear aināt no place for a decent one like her, āspecially if sheās left alone in it.ā
āOh, Iāve fixed that,ā replied Dennison, leisurely, āMother Salās a-goinā to take keer of her till she can do for herself.ā
The Rioba dropped his lathe-nail and stopped his pounding. āMother Sal,ā he repeatedāāMother Sal around on San Monito street?ā
āYes! who else?ā
Rioba Jack quietly turned and slipped on his coat.
āDennison,ā he said, with an unwonted accent of expostulation lurking in his voice, ādonāt do this thing. Keep your hand out of deviltry for onceāleastways such deviltry as this. I donāt know Jovannyās gal. I haināt hardly ever seen her. āTaint for myself Iām askinā itābut just you let her alone. Wonāt you?ā
Dennison had removed his pipe from his mouth for good now. He stood staring angrily at the Rioba, whose clear, dark eyes under their bushy brows were fixed with unwonted brilliancy upon his own. The proprietor of the Cosmopolitan burst into a rude laugh. āWhatās the matter with the man?ā he ejaculated. Then returning the Riobaās steadfast gaze with an equally pertinacious and meaning one, he answered with much deliberateness, āLook-a-here, Rioba, I suppose I can take a hint if I mustāespecially when itās rammed down into my skull as this one appears to be. You and me has got along without trouble for ever since we come to Yellow Bear. I should be sorry, very sorry, to be obleeged to have any unpleasantness between us now. I always feel bound to have unpleasantness with any man, partner or stranger, who interferes with my own particāler concerns. Do you take?ā
The Rioba made no direct reply. He stood with his eyes bent upon the floor abstractedly. Nevertheless he ātook.ā āGood-night, Dennisonāgood-night, āMister,āā he suddenly said, and turning abruptly upon his heel he quitted the Cosmopolitan without another syllable.
The gray Nevada dawn was beginning to filter between the sharp Sierra peaks. Yellow Bear looked like a sketch in India-ink on gray paper. Around the corner of the Cosmopolitan came a little procession not irreverently conveying upon a shutter something over which a sheet had been loosely spread. The air was raw and cold. āCarefulāthatās itāsteady now,ā cautioned Dennison in a low voice as they mounted the Cosmopolitan doorstep. āMister,ā Rioba Jack, Big Jinny, and Pearl Kate set down their burden at the upper end of the dance-room. āCome gals, fly round,ā exhorted Dennison, āthereās all the bar to be set up across thereāthem windows has got to be darkened upāthere aināt no time to waste. āMisterā and meāll tend to our share of the performance.ā āI say, Jinny,ā questioned the Rioba sotto voce to that Paphian nymph a moment later, when Dennison and āMisterā were engaged at a distance, āyou left her asleep, eh?ā (There had, by the way, been no allusion from either party concerned as to the embryo āunpleasantnessā of the preceding nightāagain to āMisterāsā secret regret). āSound, Jackājust like she was dead drunk,ā responded Big Jinny, cheerfully, pounding away with her hammer at the window-sash. Her interrogator frowned. The answer somehow gritted against his dormant sense of the fitting. Big Jinny drove another tack and began to whistle.
A little later a magnificent eastern flare of pink and gold fell through the one window yet undarkened upon the face of Professor Jovanny, peacefully upturned from his last pillowāa roll of his own thumbed dance-music wrapped about with a white bar napkin. A moth-eaten knitted lap-robe was thrown across his feet. Dressed in his one threadbare black suitāa pile of his own music beneath the forlorn gray headātruly here went one to the grave with all that he possessedāexcept a daughter.
Dennison, the Rioba, āMisterā and the women stood for a moment motionless beside the bodyātheir tasks completed.
āA becominā caskit, altogether,ā exclaimed the proprietor of the Cosmopolitan, eyeing it critically.
āThereās somethinā wanting all the same,ā quoth āMister,ā after the continued pause had grown oppressive.
āWantinā,ā retorted Dennison; āIād like to know what it is. Look at them there flags over the windows! Look at that there bar, where all that a manās got to do is to walk up, after heās paid his dollar, and help himself or let Pearl and Jinny here help him! Look at this
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