“It was all right to make him president of the lib’ry association when he built the lib’ry, make him a deacon when he gave the organ for the meetin’-house, give him a banquet and nineteen speeches tellin’ him he was the biggest man on earth when he put the stone watering-trough in—­all that was all right for them that thought it was all right.  But when you let ‘Kittle-belly’ Bickford—­”

“Don’t you call him that,” roared President Kitchen, thumping the table.

“Duke, then!  Dammit, crown him lord of all!  But when you let him hang that pod of his out over the rail of that judges’ stand and bust up a hoss-trot programmy that I’ve been three months gettin’ entries for—­and all jest so he can show off a white vest and a plug hat and a new gold stop-watch and have the band play ’Hail to the Chief’—­I don’t stand for it—­no, sir!”

“The trouble is with you,” retorted the president with spirit, “you’ve razoo-ed and hoss-jockeyed so long you’ve got the idea that all there is to a fair is a plug of chaw-tobacco, a bag of peanuts, and a posse of nose-whistlin’ old pelters skatin’ round a half-mile track.”

“And you and ’Kit’—­you and Duke Jabe, leave you alone to run a fair—­wouldn’t have northin’ but his new exhibition hall filled with croshayed tidies and hooked rugs.”

“Well, I move,” broke in Trustee Dunham, “that we git som’ers.  I’m personally in favor of pleasin’ Honer’ble Bickford and takin’ the exhibition hall.”

“That’s right!  That’s business!” came decisive chorus from the other three trustees.  “Let’s take the hall.”

Wallace doubled his gaunt form, propped himself on the table by his skinny arms, and stared from face to face in disgust unutterable.

“Take it?” he sneered.  “Why, you’ll take anything!  You’re takin’ up the air in this room, like pumpin’ up a sulky tire, and ain’t lettin’ it out again!  Good-day!  I’m goin’ out where I can get a full breath.”

He whirled on them at the door.

“But you hark to what I’m predictin’ to you!  If you don’t wish the devil had ye before you’re done with that old balloon with a plug hat on it in your judges’ stand, then I’ll trot an exhibition half mile on my hands and knees against Star Pointer for a bag of oats.  And I’m speakin’ for all the hossmen in this county.”

When this uncomfortable Jeremiah had departed, leaving in his wake a trailing of oaths and a bouquet of stable aroma, the trustees showed relief, even if enthusiasm was notably absent.

“It’s going to raise the tone of the fair, having him in the stand—­there ain’t any getting round that,” said the president.  “The notion seemed to strike him mighty favorable.  ‘It’s an idea!’ said he to me.  ’Yes, a real idea.  I will have other prominent gentlemen to serve with me, and we will be announced as paytrons of the races.  That will sound well, I think.’  And he asked me what two men in town was best fixed financially, and, of course, I told him Cap’n Aaron Sproul, our first selectman, and Hiram Look.  He said he hadn’t been in town long enough to get real well acquainted with either of them yet, but hoped they were gentlemen.  I told him they were.  I reckon that being skipper of a ship and ownin’ a circus stands as high as the gold-mine business.”