“They can’t’ do anything, can’t they?” he squealed.  “They’ve been into my house and knocked in the head of a keg of Medford rum, and busted three demijohns of whiskey, and got old Branscomb to sign the pledge, and scared off the rest of the boys.  Now they’re goin’ to hire a pung, and a delegation of three is goin’ to meet every train with badges on and tell every arrivin’ guest that the Smyrna tavern is a nasty, wicked place, and old Aunt Juliet Gifford and her two old-maid girls are goin’ to put up all parties at half-price.  They can’t do anything, hey! them wimmen can’t?  Well, that’s what they’ve done to date—­and if the married men of this place can’t keep their wives to home and their noses out of my business, then Smyrna can get along without a tavern.  I’m done, I say.  It’s all yours.”  Mr. Parrott tossed his open palms toward them in token of utter surrender, and picked up his valises.

“You can’t shove that off onto us that way,” roared Hiram.

“Well, your money is there, and you can go take it or leave it,” retorted the desperate Mr. Parrott.  “You’d better git your money where you can git it, seein’ that you can’t very well git it out of my hide.”  And the retiring landlord of Smyrna tavern stormed out and plodded away down the mushy highway.

Constable Nute gazed after him through the window, and then surveyed the first selectman and Hiram with fresh and constantly increasing interest.  His tufty eyebrows crawled like caterpillars, indicating that the thoughts under them must be of a decidedly stirring nature.

“Huh!  That’s it, is it?” he muttered, and noting that Cap’n Sproul seemed to be recovering his self-possession, he preferred not to wait for the threats and extorted pledge that his natural craftiness scented.  He dove out.

“Where be ye goin’ to?” demanded Hiram, checking the savage rush of the Cap’n.

“Catch him and make him shet his chops about this, if I have to spike his old jaws together.”

“It ain’t no use,” said Hiram, gloomily, setting his shoulders against the door.  “You’d only be makin’ a show and spectacle in front of the wimmen.  And after that they’d squat the whole thing out of him, the same as you’d squat stewed punkin through a sieve.”  He bored the Cap’n with inquiring eye.  “You wasn’t tellin’ me that you held a morgidge on that tavern real estate.”  There was reproach in his tones.

“No, and you wasn’t tellin’ me that you had a bill of sale of the fixin’s and furniture,” replied the Cap’n with acerbity.  “How much did you let him have?”

“Fifteen hunderd,” said Hiram, rather shamefacedly, but he perked up a bit when he added:  “There’s three pretty fair hoss-kind.”

“If there’s anything about that place that’s spavined any worse’n them hosses it’s the bedsteads,” snorted the other capitalist.  “He’s beat you by five hundred dollars.  If you should pile that furniture in the yard and hang up a sign, ‘Help yourself,’ folks wouldn’t haul it off without pay for truckin’.”