"SHAVINGS"

by Joseph C. Lincoln




CHAPTER I


Mr. Gabriel Bearse was happy. The prominence given to this
statement is not meant to imply that Gabriel was, as a general
rule, unhappy. Quite the contrary; Mr. Bearse's disposition was a
cheerful one and the cares of this world had not rounded his plump
shoulders. But Captain Sam Hunniwell had once said, and Orham
public opinion agreed with him, that Gabe Bearse was never happy
unless he was talking. Now here was Gabriel, not talking, but
walking briskly along the Orham main road, and yet so distinctly
happy that the happiness showed in his gait, his manner and in the
excited glitter of his watery eye. Truly an astonishing condition
of things and tending, one would say, to prove that Captain Sam's
didactic remark, so long locally accepted and quoted as gospel
truth, had a flaw in its wisdom somewhere.

And yet the flaw was but a small one and the explanation simple.
Gabriel was not talking at that moment, it is true, but he was
expecting to talk very soon, to talk a great deal. He had just
come into possession of an item of news which would furnish his
vocal machine gun with ammunition sufficient for wordy volley after
volley. Gabriel was joyfully contemplating peppering all Orham