“It ain’t safe to go to pokin’ him up,” advised Mr. Nute from afar.  “I should think you’d ‘a’ found that out by this time, Cap’n Sproul.”

“I’ve found out that what ain’t cowards here are thieves,’” roared the Cap’n, beside himself, ashamed, enraged at his impotence before this boastful fool and his grim bulwark.  His impulse was to cast caution to the winds and rush upon Luce.  But reflection told him that, in this flush of his childish resentment and new prominence, Luce was capable of anything.  Therefore he prudently held to the side of the road.

“The next time I come into this village,” said Mr. Luce, “I don’t propose to be called names in public by any old salt hake that has pounded his dollars out of unfort’nit’ sailors with belayin’-pins.  I know your record, and I ain’t afeard of you!”

“There’ll be worse things happen to you than to be called names.”

“Oh, there will, hey?” inquired Mr. Luce, his weak passion flaming.  “Well, lemme give you jest one hint that it ain’t safe to squdge me too fur!”

He walked back a little way, lighted the fuse of the stick of dynamite that he carried, and in spite of horrified appeals to him, cast over the shoulders of fleeing citizens, he tossed the wicked explosive into the middle of the square and ran.

In the words of Mr. Snell, when he came out from behind the watering-trough:  “It was a corn-cracker!”

A half-hour later Mr. Nute, after sadly completing a canvass of the situation, headed a delegation that visited Cap’n Sproul in the selectman’s office, where he sat, pallid with rage, and cursing.

“A hundred and seventeen lights of glass,” announced Mr. Nute, “includin’ the front stained-glass winder in the meetin’-house and the big light in Broadway’s store.  And it all happened because the critter was poked up agin’—­and I warned ye not to do it, Cap’n.”

“Would it be satisfactory to the citizens if I pulled my wallet and settled the damage?” inquired the first selectman, with baleful blandness in his tones.

Mr. Nute did not possess a delicate sense of humor or of satire.  He thoughtfully rubbed his nose.

“Reely,” he said, “when you git it reduced right down, that critter ain’t responsible any more’n one of them dynamite sticks is responsible, and if it hadn’t been for you lettin’ him loose and then pokin’ him, contrary to warnin’, them hundred and seventeen lights of glass wouldn’t—­”

“Are there any left?” asked Cap’n Sproul, still in subdued tones.

“About as many more, I should jedge,” replied Mr. Nute.

“Well, I simply want to say,” remarked the Cap’n, standing up and clinching his fists, “that if you ever mention responsibility to me again, Nute, I’ll take you by the heels and smash in the rest of that glass with you—­and I’ll do the same with any one else who don’t know enough to keep his yawp shut.  Get out of here, the whole of you, or I’ll begin on what glass is left in this town house.”