“I’ve abated some of the nuisances in this town,” stated the Cap’n, “and I cal’late I’m good for this one, now that it’s been stuck under my nose.  Why haven’t you arrested him in times past, same as you ought to have done?”

“Wasn’t any one who would swear out complaints,” said the constable.  “He’s allus been threatenin’ what kairosene and matches would do to barns; and it wouldn’t be no satisfaction to send ’Liah Luce to State Prison—­he ain’t account enough.  It wouldn’t pay the loser for a stand of buildin’s—­havin’ him there.”

Cap’n Sproul began to understand some of the sane business reasons that guaranteed the immunity of Aholiah Luce, so long as he stuck to petty thieving.  But this international matter of the town of Vienna seemed to the first selectman of Smyrna to be another sort of proposition.  And he surveyed the recalcitrant Mr. Luce with malignant gaze.

“I’ve never seen you backed down by nobody,” vouchsafed the admiring constable, anxious to shift his own responsibility and understanding pretty well how to do it.  “I’ve allus said that if there was any man could run this town the way it ought to be run you was the man to do it.”

Cap’n Sproul was not the kind to disappoint the confident flattery of those who looked up to him.  He buttoned his pea-jacket, and set his hat firmly on his head.  Mr. Luce noted these signs of belligerency and braced his firedog legs.

“It’s the meek that shall inherit, ye want to remember that!” croaked Mrs. Luce.  “And the crowned heads and the high and mighty—­where will they be then?”

“They won’t be found usin’ a stolen cook-stove and quotin’ Scriptur’,” snorted the Cap’n in disgust.

“It ain’t been stole,” insisted Mr. Luce.  “It was bought reg’lar, and it can’t be took away without mollywhackin’ my house—­and I’ve got the law on my side that says you can’t do it.”

Cap’n Sproul was close to the banking.

“Luce,” he said, savagely, “I ain’t out here to-day to discuss law p’ints nor argy doctrines of religion.  You’ve got a stove there that belongs to some one else, and you either pay for it or give it up.  I’m willin’ to be fair and reasonable, and I’ll give you fifteen seconds to pay or tear down that door framework.”

But neither alternative, nor the time allowed for acceptance, seemed to please Mr. Luce.  In sudden, weak anger at being thus cornered after long immunity, he anathematized all authority as ’twas vested in the first selectman of Smyrna.  Several men passing in the highway held up their horses and listened with interest.

Emboldened by his audience, spurred to desperate measures, Mr. Luce kicked out one of his rubber boots at the advancing Cap’n.  The Cap’n promptly grasped the extended leg and yanked.  Mr. Luce came off his perch and fell on his back in the mud, and Constable Nute straddled him instantly and held him down.  With an axe that he picked up at the dooryard woodpile, Cap’n Aaron hammered out the new door-frame, paying no heed to Mr. Luce’s threats or Mrs. Luce’s maledictions.