ee is goin' to meet every train
with badges on and tell every arrivin' guest that the Smyrna tavern
is a nasty, wicked place, and old Aunt Juliet Gifford and her two
old-maid girls are goin' to put up all parties at half-price. They
_can't_ do anything, hey! them wimmen can't? Well, that's what
they've done to date--and if the married men of this place can't keep
their wives to home and their noses out of my business, then Smyrna
can get along without a tavern. I'm done, I say. It's all yours."
Mr. Parrott tossed his open palms toward them in token of utter
surrender, and picked up his valises.

"You can't shove that off onto us that way," roared Hiram.

"Well, your money is there, and you can go take it or leave it,"
retorted the desperate Mr. Parrott. "You'd better git your money
where you can git it, seein' that you can't very well git it out of
my hide." And the retiring landlord of Smyrna tavern stormed out and
plodded away down the mushy highway.

Constable Nute gazed after him through the window, and then surveyed
the first selectman and Hiram with fresh and constantly increasing
interest. His tufty eyebrows crawled like caterpillars, indicating
that the thoughts under them must be of a decidedly stirring nature.

"Huh! That's it, is it?" he muttered, and noting that Cap'n Sproul
seemed to be recovering his self-possession, he preferred not to wait
for the threats and extorted pledge that his natural craftiness
scented. He dove out.

"Where be ye goin' to?" demanded Hiram, checking the savage rush of
the Cap'n.

"Catch him and make him shet his chops about this, if I have to spike
his old jaws together."

"It ain't no use," said Hiram, gloomily, setting his shoulders
against the door. "You'd only be makin' a show and spectacle in front
of the wimmen. And after that they'd squat the whole thing out of
him, the same as you'd squat stewed punkin through a sieve." He bored
the Cap'n with inquiring eye. "You wasn't tellin' me that you held
a morgidge on that tavern real estate." There was reproach in his
tones.

"No, and you wasn't tellin' me that you had a bill of sale of the
fixin's and furniture," replied the Cap'n with acerbity. "How much
did you let him have?"

"Fifteen hunderd," said Hiram, rather shamefacedly, but he perked
up a bit when he added: "There's three pretty fair hoss-kind."

"If there's anything about that place that's spavined any worse'n
them hosses it's the bedsteads," snorted the o