“I know,” the man said regretfully. “That got a lot of the boys. Ben was in service at the time, wasn’t he?”
“No,” the boy answered. “He never got in. Luke was the one who was in service. Ben tried to get in twice but he couldn’t pass the examinations.”
“Is that so?” the man said vaguely. “Well, I was mighty sorry to hear about his death. Old Ben was one fine boy!”
Nothing was said for a moment.
“I’ll tell you how fine he was,” Mr. Flood, who had been wheezing with closed eyes, now grunted suddenly, glaring solemnly about him with an air of brutal earnestness. “Now I think I knew that boy about as well as any man alive—he worked for me for almost fifteen years—started out when he was ten years old as a route-boy on The Courier and kept right on working for my paper until just a year or two before he died! And I’m here to tell you,” he wheezed solemnly, “that they don’t come any better than Ben!” Here he glowered around him pugnaciously as if the character of a dead saint had been called in question. “Now he wasn’t one of your big talkers who’d promise everything and know nothing. Ben was a do-er, not a talker. You could depend on him,” said Mr. Flood, hoarsely and impressively. “When he told you he’d do a thing, you’d know it was going to get done! As regular as a clock and as steady as the day is long! And as quiet a fellow as you ever saw,” said Mr. Flood. “That was Ben for you! Am I right?” he demanded, suddenly turning to the boy. “Was that Ben?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered. “That was Ben.”
“And until you asked him something he’d go for days at a time without speaking to you, but I knew he didn’t mean anything by it, it was just his way. He believed in tending to his own business and he expected every one else to do the same.” And for a moment, exhausted by these eulogies, he wheezed rapidly.
“Well, the world would be a lot better off if there were more like him,” the pompous, swarthy little man now said virtuously, as if this sentiment expressed his own pious belief and practice. “There are too many people sticking their noses in other people’s business, as it is.”
“Well, they didn’t stick their noses in Ben’s business,” said Mr. Flood with grim emphasis, “not after the first time, anyway. But they didn’t come any better than that boy. I couldn’t have thought more of him if he’d been my own son,” he concluded piously and then gasped stertorously, lifted his cigar slowly to his lips with the thick, gouty tenderness that characterized
