Page:Teeftallow-1926.djvu/134

A FEW days after Abner Teeftallow's rather justifiable drunkenness, Mr. Tug Beavers sat on his bed at the Scovell House filling the room with a strong smell of iodoform. He was dressing a finger which had got chewed during a fight at the Warrington dance. However, Tug had licked his man, Peck Bradley, in a fair fight, so Abner, Tug, Zed, and all the other denizens of the garage counted it a finger well spent.

Abner Teeftallow was doing nothing that morning further than waiting for a certain sound in the hall. To kill time he was polishing his black hair as glossily as might be and was trying to persuade it to make a large curl above his right eye. Mr. Beavers was questioning Abner about what had happened on the night of the dance.

"What did you fellows do at Shallburger's meetin'?" he pressed. "He's a feller I kain't quite make out."

"We adopted Socialism."

"What's that?"

"It's a plan to divide up all the work into such little bits, everybody will be out of a job most of the time."

"That's a hell of a plan."

"Yep, that's Socialism. . . ." Abner drew out his nickel watch, noted the minute, then began listening more nervously.

"Who'll support you-all?"

"The Guv'ment."

"How?"

"Pension us."

"Pension hell, don't you know the Guv'ment ain't goin' to pension you-all unless you got hurt in a fight?"