Cap’n Aaron Sproul arrived at the town office next morning in a frame of mind distinctly unamiable.  Though his house was far out of the village, the unearthly racket of the night had floated up to him—­squawking horns, and clanging bells, and exploding powder.  The hundred cannons at sunrise brought a vigorous word for each reverberation.  At an early hour Hiram Look had come over, gay in his panoply as chief of the Ancient and Honorables, and repeated his insistent demand that the Cap’n ride at the head of the parade in an imported barouche, gracing the occasion as head of the municipality.

“The people demand it,” asseverated Hiram with heat.  “The people have rights over you.”

“Same as they had over that surplus in the town treasury, hey?” inquired the Cap’n.  “What’s that you’re luggin’ in that paper as though ’twas aigs?”

“It’s one of my plug hats that I was goin’ to lend you,” explained his friend, cheerily.  “I’ve rigged it up with a cockade.  I figger that we can’t any of us be too festal on a day like this.  I know you ain’t no ways taken to plug hats; but when a man holds office and the people look to him for certain things, he has to bow down to the people.  We’re goin’ to have a great and glorious day of this, Cap,” he cried, all his showman’s soul infected by gallant excitement, and enthusiasm glowing in his eyes.  It was a kind of enthusiasm that Cap’n Sproul’s gloomy soul resented.

“I’ve had consid’able many arguments with you, Hiram, over this affair, first and last, and just at present reck’nin’ I’m luggin’ about all the canvas my feelin’s will stand.  Now I won’t wear that damnation stove-funnel hat; I won’t ride in any baroosh; I won’t make speeches; I won’t set up on any platform.  I’ll simply set in town office and ’tend to my business, and draw orders on the treasury to pay bills, as fast as bills are presented.  That’s what I started out to do, and that’s all I will do.  And if you don’t want to see me jibe and all go by the board, you keep out of my way with your plug hats and barooshes.  And it might be well to inform inquirin’ friends to the same effect.”

He pushed away the head-gear that Hiram still extended toward him, and tramped out of the house and down the hill with his sturdy sea-gait.  Dodging firecrackers that sputtered and banged in the highway about his feet, and cursing soulfully, he gained the town office and grimly sat himself down.

He knew when the train from down-river and the outside world had arrived by the riotous accessions to the crowds without in the square.  Firemen in red shirts thronged everywhere.  Men who wore feathered hats and tawdry uniforms filled the landscape.  He gazed on them with unutterable disgust.

A stranger awakened him from his reverie on the vanities of the world.  The stranger had studied the sign

    SELECTMEN’S OFFICE

and had come in.  He wore a frock coat and shiny silk hat, and inquired whether he had the pleasure of speaking to Captain Aaron Sproul, first selectman of Smyrna.