Mr. Pryer, as far as the eye can tell, is not much to write home about. His face is pinched and stretched, so his eyes can't quite open to their proper extent, and I think he cannot smile for fear of tearing his physiognomy. This gives him an habitually disapprobious expression, which seems to especially darken the clouds on my approach. I have imagined that once upon a time, he was left too long in the oven. In the matter of dress, Mr. Pryer is old-school. He prefers a pair of grey pants, with mothballs in the pocketst, held under his portly protrusions by suspenders, which same protrusions are clothed in a tattered t-shirt, of the plain white variety. When he walks, which is what he has been generally observed to do, he loops his thumbs in the suspenders, and stares quite straight ahead, so he seems very intent and purposeful. Sometimes, though, he feels tottery, and so one hand is employed in grasping a cane, and the other, not to impair his dignity by lopsided looping, dangles like a dead-weight at his side. This then is how I've observed him: walking in his unrespectable attire, winking at the girls under the delusion he is still twenty, or muttering about the decay of morals and discipline in an aggravated awareness of his age.
Mr. Pryer's chief claim to my curiosity, however, is not his face or his clothes or his manner, but his occupation and motive. His occupation is simply told � he is, and endeavors to remain, well informed. And I cannot say he doesn't succeed. He knows how many new kittens the Johnsons have, their colors, and their names � he is prepared to give, word for word, the deliberations of the town council, and the pertinent sayings of the members thereof � he can ask how my cold is, no matter I only sneezed in the darkest regions of my house � he will catalogue, with relish, the various criminal grotesqueries, and medical complications of all the neighborhood � and, of course, provides a running commentary on all these things, replete with illustrations of his forebodings, or bright-hopes, from the history of the town. But the curious thing is the local nature of Mr. Pryer's knowledge. He can't even name the president, unless he at some time had a bearing upon village affairs, but he can detail the private history of the mayor present or those past, and even speculate on those to come with fair accuracy; he is entirely unfamiliar with any world mythology, but to him the doings of Samuel Sordid's Ghost, across the way, are an open book.
But Mr. Pryer's motive is another thing altogether. From what I gather, he has always lived in precisely the house he is supposed to live in now. And it is common knowledge he has always been well informed. These Pennsylvanians have a passion for the family business, my barber, for instance, is the last of a long line of barbers, stretching almost to the invention of hair. I can only speculate what Mr. Pryer's father might have been: a mail-man, or a reporter, to know so many people; or a philosopher, or writer, to bequeath such verbose wisdom to his son � who can say? He has, in any case, bequeathed all this and more, as his son will readily tell you. I suppose, to his detractors, Mr. Pryer is a professional busy-body, but to those of us, like myself, who look upon his pursuits with a benevolent eye, he seems more of a messenger � a man whose job it is to spread the news, sweet or foul, private or public, his business or otherwise, to all parts of this village. In his own eyes, who can say what Mr. Pryer is?
It is with infinite regret, not untouched with relief from the areas of our minds that contain dark secrets, that this village has now to bid Mr. Pryer good-bye; at last, it would seem, the noble profession of town pryer is to be vacant; the man who has so faithfully filled that post is leaving to preside over a smaller domain. He is off to the nursing home, where, I am told, many such Pryers go. I wonder what it would be like � surrounded by Mr. Pryers?
©Copyright, 2004, Robert Quiller