“I shall never have the same confidence in John Sprott.  He takes altogether too sanguine a view of human nature.  Why, only last November—­you remember the great gale of November the 1st, Sir John?  I was very active in burying the poor bodies brought ashore next day and for several days after; for, as you remember, a couple of Indymen dragged their anchors and broke up under Pendennis Battery:  and John Sprott said to me in the most assured way, ’The town’ll never forget your kindness, sir.  You mark my words,’ he said, ’this here action will stand you upon the pinnacles of honour till you and me, if I may respectfully say it, sit down together in the land of marrow and fatness.’  After that you’d have thought a man might count on some popularity.  But what happened?  A day or two later—­that is to say, on November the 5th—­I was sitting in my shop with a magnifying glass in my eye, cleaning out a customer’s watch, when in walked half a dozen boys carrying a man’s body between ’em.  You could tell that life was extinct by the way his head hung back and his legs trailed limp on the floor as they brought him in, and his face looked to me terribly swollen and discoloured.  ‘Dear, dear!’ said I.  ’What?  Another poor soul?  Take him up to the mortewary, that’s good boys,’ I said; ’and you shall have twopence apiece out of the poor-box.’  How d’ye think they answered me?  They bust out a-laughing, and cries one:  ’If you please, sir, ’tis meant for you! ‘Tis the fifth of November, and we’m goin’ to burn you in effigy.’  I chased ’em out of the shop, and later on in the day I spoke to John Sprott about it.  ‘Well now,’ said John Sprott,’ I passed a lot of boys just now, burning a guy at the top of the Moor, and I had my suspicions; but the thing hadn’t a feature of yours to take hold on, barrin’ the size of its feet.’  And that’s what you call popularity!” wound up the Mayor with bitterness.  “That’s what a man gets for rising early and lying down late to serve his country!”

“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor,” put in Captain Bright, “but they are threatening to burn worse than your effigy fact I heard some talk of setting fire to your house and shop.  Nay,” he went on as the Mayor bounced up to his feet, “there’s no real cause for alarm.  I have sent on my lieutenant with fifty men to keep the mob on the move, and have stationed a dozen outside here to escort you home.”

“The Riot Act—­where’s my Riot Act?” cried his Worship, searching his pockets.  “I never read out ‘God save the King,’ and without ‘God save the King’ a man may burn all my valybles and make turbulent gestures and show of arms, and harry and murder to the detriment of the public peace, and refuse to move on when requested, and all the time in the eyes of the law be a babe unborn.  Where’s the Riot Act, I say? for without it I’m a lost man and good-bye to Falmouth!”

“Then ’tis lucky that I came provided with a copy.”  Captain Bright produced a paper from the breast of his tunic.