Ellis Parker Butler

“ The next evening old E. W. stopped in at the Smokeorium. He had come for his pipe. He had lost his placid easy-going look, and seemed worried and haunted.
“I got to have my pipe, Sim,” he said. “Gits me nervous without it. Gits me all of a tremble.”
“Here she is, E. W.,” Sim said. “I put a new stem in her for you, nice as new.”
E. W. flared up.
“Dod rot you, Sim!” he mumbled. “What'd you do that for? I ain't goin' to have you doin' things for me. I'm deep enough into it now. I owe Society enough already. Hundred and thirty-seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight hours.” ”

“ Late that night Sim Cotter, going home from the Smokeorium, saw old E. W. in Josie's garden, down on his knees pulling weeds in the moonlight. It was then close to two o'clock in the morning. Sim leaned across the fence.
“Say, you old idiot, you, go to bed; why don't you?” he asked. ”

“ We'd do the work and take his promises to pay it back, only, Murray, he'd pay it back the next time he comes on earth, like he believes he's going to come. We do our time now, and clean up what he owes Society, and when he gets reincarnated he evens up by doing a couple of hours overtime every work-day, until he gets us paid back. ”

“ Here's a man—a citizen—seventy-six years old, and all he can say for himself is that he drives a hearse once in a while! Suppose every living man drove a hearse once in a while and did nothing else! The whole world would be houseless—without clothes. ”

“ Hearse-driving in a healthy town is not a job that overworks a man.
SIM Cotter, when he opened his Smokeorium, meant it to be the most popular cigar-store in Iowa. He figured that with the bar-rooms all closed, the men would be glad to have a clubby place where they would be absolutely welcome to sit smoke ”

“ He was willing to be the butt of the good-natured jokes.
But what B. Z. said was different. B. Z. was not kindly. B. Z. was sore. B. Z. always carried around an unextinguished coal of anger, ready to be stirred into a blaze of wrath. ”

“ You don't know what's going on in the world. You loaf around here and stink up the air with your tobacco and— My God! I tell you it's coming! Laugh—you'll see!”
“How about that, Sim?” Murray Tilford drawled. “Looks like B. Z. don't like the kind of smokes you been selling lately.”
B. Z. Beeton glared at him. He was so mad he trembled.
“Well, I don't know,” said Sim good-naturedly; “maybe he refers to them cigar-clippings old E. W. uses. How about it, E. W.?”
Old E. W.—Ed Winters—grinned, and took his old black pipe from his mouth with a hand that trembled with age. ”

“ A man is apt to be like that when he has been beaten for the city attorneyship eight successive years. For three years he was the only man on the local Democratic ticket not elected, and then he tried the Republicans, and was licked three times. ”