“Who’s been lyin’ about me?” demanded the first selectman.

“It ain’t that way at all!  Seems like the town sort of woke up all of a sudden and realized it didn’t like your style of managin’.  The way you acted when the delegation came to you put on the finishin’ touch.  Now, Aaron, you don’t have to take my word for this.  Prob’ly it doesn’t interest you—­but you can trot around and find out for yourself, if it does.”

The first selectman, his eyes gleaming, the horn of gray hair that he twisted in moments of mental stress standing straight up, rose and reached for his hat.

“Mutiny on me, will they?” he growled.  “We’ll jest see about that!”

“Where are you goin’, Aaron?” asked the placid Louada Murilla, troubled by his ireful demeanor.

“I’m goin’ to find out if this jeebasted town is goin’ to kick me out of office!  They’ll discover they haven’t got any Kunnel Gid Ward to deal with!”

“But you said you were out of politics, Aaron!” Dismay and grief were in her tones.  “I want you for myself, husband.  You promised me.  I don’t want you to go back into politics.”

“I hain’t ever been out of politics yet,” he retorted.  “And if there are any men in this town that think I’m down and out they’ll have another guess comin’.”

He marched out of the house, leaving his visiting friend in most cavalier fashion.

Hiram stared after him, meditatively stroking his long mustache.

“Mis’ Sproul,” he said at last, “you take muddy roads, wet grounds, balky animils, fool rubes, drunken performers, and the high price of lemons, and the circus business is some raspy on the general disposition.  But since I’ve known your husband I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s an angel-maker compared with goin’ to sea.”

“You had no business tellin’ him what you did,” complained the wife.  “You ought to understand his disposition by this time.”

“I ought to, but I see I don’t,” acknowledged the friend.  He scrubbed his plug hat against his elbow and started for the door.  “I’d been thinkin’ that if ever I’d run up against a man that really wanted to shuck office that man was your husband.  I reckoned he really knew what he wanted part of the time.”

“Can’t you go after him and make him change his mind back?” she pleaded.

“The voters of this town will attend to that.  I was tellin’ him the straight truth.  If he don’t get it passed to him hot off the bat when he tackles ’em, then I’m a sucker.  You needn’t worry, marm.  He’ll have plenty of time to ’tend to his garden sass this summer.”

It was midnight when Cap’n Sproul returned to an anxious and waiting wife.  He was flushed and hot and hoarse, but the gleam in his eye was no longer that of offended pride and ireful resolve.  There was triumph in his glance.

“If there’s a bunch of yaller dogs think they can put me out of office in this town they’ll find they’re tryin’ to gnaw the wrong bone,” he declared hotly.