ent to do the job, and I guess you'll hev to
foot the bill, Jethro."

"C-court'll hev to app'int an agent?"

"I callate."

"Er--you a candidate--Sam--you a candidate?"

"Don't know but what I be," answered the usually wary Mr. Price.

"G-goin' to Harwich--hain't you?"

"Mebbe I be, and mebbe I hain't," said Sam, not able to repress a
self-conscious snicker.

"M-might as well be you as anybody, Sam," said Jethro, as he drove on.

It was not strange that the idea, thus planted, should grow in Mr.
Price's favor as he proceeded. He had been surprised at Jethro's
complaisance, and he wondered whether, after all, he had done well
to help Chester stir people up at this time. When he reached Harwich,
instead of presenting himself promptly at the spinster's house, he
went first to the office of Judge Parkinson, as became a prudent man of
affairs.

Perhaps there is no need to go into the details of Mr. Price's
discomfiture on the occasion of this interview. The judge was by nature
of a sour disposition, but he haw-hawed so loudly as he explained to Mr.
Price the identity of the road agent that the judge of probate in the
next office thought his colleague had gone mad. Afterward Mr. Price
stood for some time in the entry, where no one could see him, scratching
his head and repeating his favorite exclamation, "I want to know!" It
has been ascertained that he omitted to pay his respects to the spinster
on that day.

Cyamon Johnson carried the story back to Coniston, where it had the
effect of eliminating Mr. Price from local politics for some time to
come.

That same morning Chester Perkins was seen by many driving wildly about
from farm to farm, supposedly haranguing his supporters to make a
final stand against the tyrant, but by noon it was observed by those
naturalists who were watching him that his activity had ceased. Chester
arrived at dinner time at Joe Northcutt's, whose land bordered on the
piece of road which had caused so much trouble, and Joe and half a dozen
others had been at work there all morning under the road agent whom
Judge Parkinson had appointed. Now Mrs. Northcutt was Chester's sister,
a woman who in addition to other qualities possessed the only sense
of humor in the family. She ushered the unsuspecting Chester into the
kitchen, and there, seated beside Joe and sipping a saucer of very hot
coffee, was Jethro Bass himself. Chester halted in the doorway, his face
brick-red, words utterly failing