In a few moments Hilma was surrounded by a group of young men, clamouring for dances.They came from all corners of the barn, leaving the other girls precipitately, almost rudely.There could be little doubt as to who was to be the belle of the occasion.Hilma's little triumph was immediate, complete.
Annixter could hear her voice from time to time, its usual velvety huskiness vibrating to a note of exuberant gayety.
All at once the orchestra swung off into a march--the Grand March.There was a great rush to secure "partners." Young Vacca, still going the rounds, was pushed to one side.The gayly apparelled clerk from the Bonneville store lost his head in the confusion.He could not find his "partner." He roamed wildly about the barn, bewildered, his eyes rolling.He resolved to prepare an elaborate programme card on the back of an old envelope.Rapidly the line was formed, Hilma and Harran Derrick in the lead, Annixter having obstinately refused to engage in either march, set or dance the whole evening.Soon the confused shuffling of feet settled to a measured cadence; the orchestra blared and wailed, the snare drum, rolling at exact intervals, the cornet marking the time.It was half-past eight o'clock.
Annixter drew a long breath:
"Good," he muttered, "the thing is under way at last."Singularly enough, Osterman also refused to dance.The week before he had returned from Los Angeles, bursting with the importance of his mission.He had been successful.He had Disbrow "in his pocket." He was impatient to pose before the others of the committee as a skilful political agent, a manipulator.He forgot his attitude of the early part of the evening when he had drawn attention to himself with his wonderful clothes.Now his comic actor's face, with its brownish-red cheeks, protuberant ears and horizontal slit of a mouth, was overcast with gravity.His bald forehead was seamed with the wrinkles of responsibility.He drew Annixter into one of the empty stalls and began an elaborate explanation, glib, voluble, interminable, going over again in detail what he had reported to the committee in outline.
"I managed--I schemed--I kept dark--I lay low----"But Annixter refused to listen.
"Oh, rot your schemes.There's a punch in the harness room that will make the hair grow on the top of your head in the place where the hair ought to grow.Come on, we'll round up some of the boys and walk into it."They edged their way around the hall outside "The Grand March,"toward the harness room, picking up on their way Caraher, Dyke, Hooven and old Broderson.Once in the harness room, Annixter shot the bolt.
"That affair outside," he observed, "will take care of itself, but here's a little orphan child that gets lonesome without company."Annixter began ladling the punch, filling the glasses.
Osterman proposed a toast to Quien Sabe and the Biggest Barn.
Their elbows crooked in silence.Old Broderson set down his glass, wiping his long beard and remarking:
"That--that certainly is very--very agreeable.I remember a punch I drank on Christmas day in '83, or no, it was '84--anyhow, that punch--it was in Ukiah--'TWAS '83--" He wandered on aimlessly, unable to stop his flow of speech, losing himself in details, involving his talk in a hopeless maze of trivialities to which nobody paid any attention.
"I don't drink myself," observed Dyke, "but just a taste of that with a lot of water wouldn't be bad for the little tad.She'd think it was lemonade." He was about to mix a glass for Sidney, but thought better of it at the last moment.
"It's the chartreuse that's lacking," commented Caraher, lowering at Annixter.The other flared up on the instant.
"Rot, rot.I know better.In some punches it goes; and then, again, in others it don't."But it was left to Hooven to launch the successful phrase:
"Gesundheit," he exclaimed, holding out his second glass.After drinking, he replaced it on the table with a long breath."Ach Gott!" he cried, "dat poonsch, say I tink dot poonsch mek some demn goot vertilizer, hey?"Fertiliser! The others roared with laughter.
"Good eye, Bismarck," commented Annixter.The name had a great success.Thereafter throughout the evening the punch was invariably spoken of as the "Fertiliser." Osterman, having spilt the bottom of a glassful on the floor, pretended that he saw shoots of grain coming up on the spot.Suddenly he turned upon old Broderson.
"I'm bald, ain't I? Want to know how I lost my hair? Promise you won't ask a single other question and I'll tell you.Promise your word of honour.""Eh?What--wh--I--I don't understand.Your hair?Yes, I'll promise.How did you lose it?""It was bit off."
The other gazed at him stupefied; his jaw dropped.The company shouted, and old Broderson, believing he had somehow accomplished a witticism, chuckled in his beard, wagging his head.But suddenly he fell grave, struck with an idea.He demanded:
"Yes--I know--but--but what bit it off?"
"Ah," vociferated Osterman, "that's JUST what you promised not to ask."The company doubled up with hilarity.Caraher leaned against the door, holding his sides, but Hooven, all abroad, unable to follow, gazed from face to face with a vacant grin, thinking it was still a question of his famous phrase.
"Vertilizer, hey? Dots some fine joke, hey? You bedt."What with the noise of their talk and laughter, it was some time before Dyke, first of all, heard a persistent knocking on the bolted door.He called Annixter's attention to the sound.
Cursing the intruder, Annixter unbolted and opened the door.But at once his manner changed.
"Hello.It's Presley.Come in, come in, Pres."There was a shout of welcome from the others.A spirit of effusive cordiality had begun to dominate the gathering.
Annixter caught sight of Vanamee back of Presley, and waiving for the moment the distinction of employer and employee, insisted that both the friends should come in.
"Any friend of Pres is my friend," he declared.
