ther capitalist. "He's
beat you by five hundred dollars. If you should pile that furniture
in the yard and hang up a sign, 'Help yourself,' folks wouldn't haul
it off without pay for truckin'."

"Le's see!" said Hiram, fingering his nose, "was it real money or
Confederate scrip that _you_ let him have on _your_ morgidge?"

"Thutty-five hunderd ain't much on the most central piece of real
estate in this village," declared the Cap'n, in stout defence.

"It's central, all right, but so is the stomach-ache," remarked Hiram,
calmly. "What good is that land when there ain't been a buildin' built
in this town for fifteen years, and no call for any? As for the house,
I'll bet ye a ten-cent cigar I can go over there and push it down--and
I ain't braggin' of my strength none, either."

The Cap'n did not venture to defend his investment further. He stared
despondently through the window at the seamed roof and weather-worn
walls that looked particularly forlorn and dilapidated on that gray
March day.

"I let him have money on it when the trees was leaved out, and things
look different then," he sighed.

"And I must have let him have it when I was asleep and dreamin' that
Standard Ile had died and left his money to me," snorted the showman.
"I ain't blamin' you, Cap, and you needn't blame me, but the size
of it is you and me has gone into partnership and bought a tavern,
and didn't know it. If they had let Parrott alone he might have
wiggled out of the hole after a while."

"It ain't wuth a hoorah in a hen-pen if it ain't run as a tavern,"
stated the Cap'n. "I ain't in favor of rum nor sellin' rum, and I
knew that Ferd was sellin' a little suthin' on the sly, but he told
me he was goin' to repair up and git in some summer boarders, and
I was lettin' him work along. There ain't much business nor
look-ahead to wimmen, is there?" he asked, sourly.

"Not when they bunch themselves in a flock and get to squawkin',"
agreed his friend.

"I don't know what they are doin' over there now," averred the first
selectman, "but before they set fire to it or tear the daylights out,
and seein' as how it's our property accordin' to present outlook,
I reckon we'd better go over and put an eye on things. They prob'ly
think it belongs to Ferd."

"Not since that bean-pole with a tin badge onto it got acrost there
with its mouth open," affirmed Hiram, with decision, "and if he ain't
told 'em that we bought Ferd out and set him up in the rum b