Father McGowan tactfully spoke of the weather, and then he suggested going down to the corner drug store, where pink sodas could be bought for five cents. There was a flattering acceptance of his offer. They started off, all talking loudly to him of their large achievements. He listened and answered just at the right time, and said just the right thing. So they faded into the night, the long, black shadow with the smaller ones about it, clinging to it.
"He's takin' 'em to the drug store, I bet," said a lanky boy who was smoking in the shadows. His voice was sad.
"He must say lots of Masses," said his companion. "Every time them kids bawl around his place they get something to eat."
"Um hum," agreed the first speaker, "but he ain't no soft guy. Sometimes he licks 'em fit to kill."
Down the street the drug store screen door slapped shut smartly.
"Them five-cent sodas ain't no good anyway!" said the lanky boy. "_I_ wouldn't want none!" the other sighed.
"No," said Mrs. Fry, "he ain't here. He's went to the drug store with a mess of kids. Yuh can set, or yuh can go. _He_ don't care. That's the kind of a man _he_ is."
The man who stood on the Rectory porch said he would wait. As he stepped across the threshold Mrs. Fry recognised him as a doctor who had been uppish and sent in his card, "like he was a King." She looked critically at his boots. "Trackin' in dust all the time----" she muttered. Then she went heavily down the hall, slamming the dining-room door after her.
"_He_ never gets no rest!" she stated aloud to a picture of a dead duck, hanging by its feet. "Never no peace nor no time to smoke!" She glared at the fowl which had been given Father McGowan by Agnes O'Raddle, as she soliloquised. The erstwhile Mr. Fry, who had always been forced to smoke in the backyard, was far away.
"Well?" questioned Father McGowan. The doctor who sat across the table from him leaned forward and began to speak quickly, his breath coming between his quick words in gasps: "My wife's people had the controlling interest in this plant, and I put all my money in it. It had always paid well. A ventilator, it is, which slips beneath a raised window,--simple affair, yet good. Then this Madden man got ahold of an improved article, patented it, and started a manufactory in the same town, started it on a large scale,--advertised extensively.... Well, we're ruined. We can't compete. He sells below cost. He can't want money; he's losing now. Why does he do it? We've done everything. I've offered him----"