“I don’t blame him none for duckin’,” murmured Old Man Jordan to his seat companion.  “Any man that was in the crowd that coaxed Cap’n Sproul into takin’ the foremanship of Heckly Fire Comp’ny has got a good excuse.  I b’lieve the law says that ye can’t put a man twice in peril of his life.”

Cap’n Sproul’s stormy relinquishment of the hateful honor that had been foisted upon him by the Smyrna fire-fighters was history recent enough to give piquant relish to the present situation.  He had not withheld nor modified his threats as to what would happen to any other committee that came to him proffering public office.

The more prudent among Smyrna’s voters had hesitated about making the irascible ex-mariner a candidate for selectman’s berth.

But Smyrna, in its placid New England eddy, had felt its own little thrill from the great tidal wave of municipal reform sweeping the country.  It immediately gazed askance at Colonel Gideon Ward, for twenty years first selectman of Smyrna, and growled under its breath about “bossism.”  But when the search was made for a candidate to run against him, Smyrna men were wary.  Colonel Ward held too many mortgages and had advanced too many call loans not to be well fortified against rivals.

“The only one who has ever dared to twist his tail is his brother-in-law, the Cap’n,” said Odbar Broadway, oracularly, to the leaders who had met in his store to canvass the political situation.  “The Cap’n won’t be as supple as some in town office, but he ain’t no more hell ‘n’ repeat than what we’ve been used to for the last twenty years.  He’s wuth thutty thousand dollars, and Gid Ward can’t foreclose no mo’gidge on him nor club him with no bill o’ sale.  He’s the only prominunt man in town that can afford to take the office away from the Colonel.  What ye’ve got to do is to go ahead and elect him, and then trust to the Lord to make him take it.”

So that was what Smyrna had done on that slushy winter’s day.

It did it with secret joy and with ballots hidden in its palms, where the snapping eyes of Colonel Ward could not spy.

And now, instead of invoking the higher power mentioned as a resource by Broadway, the moderator of the town meeting was struggling with human tools, and very rickety human tools they seemed to be.

Five different chairmen did he nominate, and with great alacrity the five refused to serve.

The moderator took off his glasses, and testily rapped the dented table.

“Feller citizens,” he snapped, “this is gittin’ to be boys’ play.  I realize puffickly that Cap’n Aaron Sproul, our first selectman-elect, has not been a seeker after public office since he retired as foreman of the Hecla Fire Company.  I realize puffickly that he entertained some feelin’ at the time that—­that—­he wasn’t exactly cal’lated to be foreman of an engine company.  But that ain’t sayin’ that he won’t receive like gentlemen the committee