onscious
humor.' I'll give in that Angie is about as serious a matter as I can
think of without settin' down to rest. Humph! so fur we haven't gained
any knots to speak of. Any more candidates on your mind?"

More possibilities were mentioned, but none of them seemed to fill the
bill. The conference broke up without arriving at a decision. Mr. Bangs
and the town clerk walked down the hill together.

"Do you know, Bailey," said Asaph, "the way I look at it, this pickin'
out a housekeeper for Whit ain't any common job. It's somethin' to think
over. Cy's a restless critter; been cruisin' hither and yon all his
life. I'm sort of scared that he'll get tired of Bayport and quit if
things here don't go to suit him. Now if a real good nice woman--a nice
LOOKIN' woman, say--was to keep house for him it--it--"

"Well?"

"Well, I mean--that is, don't you s'pose if some such woman as that
was to be found for the job he might in time come to like her
and--and--er--"

"Ase Tidditt, what are you drivin' at?"

"Why, I mean he might come to marry her; there! Then he'd be contented
to settle down to home and stay put. What do you think of the idea?"

"Think of it? I think it's the dumdest foolishness ever I heard. I
declare if the very mention of a woman to some of you old baches
don't make your heads soften up like a jellyfish in the sun! Ain't Cy
Whittaker got money? Ain't he got a nice home? Ain't he happy?"

"Yes, he is now, I s'pose, but--"

"WELL, then! And you want him to get married! What do you know about
marryin'? Never tried it, have you?"

"Course I ain't! You know I ain't."

"All right. Then I'd keep quiet about such things, if I was you."

"You needn't fly up like a settin' hen. Everybody's wife ain't--"

He stopped in the middle of the sentence.

"What's that?" demanded his companion, sharply.

"Nothin'; nothin'. _I_ don't care; I was only tryin' to fix things
comf'table for Whit. Has Heman said anything about the harbor
appropriation sence he's been home? I haven't heard of it if he has."

Mr. Bangs's answer was a grunt, signifying a negative. Congressman
Atkins had been, since his return to Bayport, exceedingly noncommittal
concerning the appropriation. To Tad Simpson and a very few chosen
lieutenants and intimates he had said that he hoped to get it; that was
all. This was a disquieting change of attitude, for, at the beginning
of the term just passed, he had affirmed that he was GOING to get it.
How