was to give a nightly entertainment at the hall,
consisting of hypnotism and psychic readings, the latter by "that
astounding occult seer and prophetess, Madame Dawn."

Cap'n Sproul went home growling strong language, but confessing to
himself that he was a little ashamed to enter into any further contest
with the cigarette-smoking showman and the two men who were the
Cap'n's hated associates on the board of selectmen.

That evening neighbor Hiram Look called with Mrs. Look on their way
to the village to attend the show, but Cap'n Sproul doggedly resisted
their appeals that he take his wife and go along, too. He opposed
no objection, however, when Louada Murilla decided that she would
accept neighbor Look's offer of escort.

But when she came back and looked at him, and sighed, and sighed,
and looked at him till bedtime, shaking her head sadly when he
demanded the reason for her pensiveness, he wished he had made her
stay at home. He decided that Zeburee Nute had probably been busy
with his tongue as to that boyish display of temper on the Rattledown
Hill road.

Hiram Look came over early the next morning and found the Cap'n
thinning beets in his garden. The expression on the visitor's face
did not harmonize with the brightness of the sunshine.

"I don't blame you for not goin'," he growled. "But if you had an
idea of what they was goin' to do to get even, I should 'a' most
thought you'd 'a' tipped me off. It would have been the part of a
friend, anyway."

The Cap'n blinked up at him in mute query.

"It ain't ever safe to sass people that's got the ear of the public,
like reporters and show people," proceeded Hiram, rebukingly. "I've
been in the show business, and I know. They can do you, and do you
plenty, and you don't stand the show of an isuckle in a hot spider."

"What are ye tryin' to get through you, anyway?" demanded the first
selectman.

"Hain't your wife said northin' about it?"

"She's set and looked at me like I was a cake that she'd forgot in
the oven," confided the Cap'n, sullenly; "but that's all I know about
it."

"Well, that's about what I've had to stand in my fam'ly, too. I tell
ye, ye hadn't ought to have sassed that mesmerist feller. Oh, I heard
all about it," he cried, flapping hand of protest as the Cap'n tried
to speak. "I don't know why you done it. What I say is, you ought
to have consulted me. I know show people better'n you do. Then you
ain't heard northin' of what she said?"