ver," averred Lycurgus Snell, acting as spokesman,
"and we can't figger any good and reeliable way of gittin' him without
him gittin' us, if he's so minded, all in one tableau, same to be
observed with smoked glasses like an eclipse. No, s'r, we ain't in
any way disposed to taller the heavens nor furnish mince-meat
funerals. And if we don't git him, and he knows we're takin' action
agin' him, he'll come round and blow our barns up--and we ain't so
well able to stand the loss as you and Mr. Look be."

"Well, if you ain't about the nearest to knot-holes with the rims
gone off'm 'em of anything I ever see," declared the Cap'n, with fury,
"may I be used for oakum to calk a guano gunlow!"

"If you think it's a job to set any man to, you'd better go and do
it yourself," retorted Snell, bridling. "You know as well as I do,
s'leckman, that so long as 'Liah has been let alone he's only been
a plain thief, and we've got along with him here in town all
right--onpleasant and somewhat expensive, like potater-bugs. But
you seem to have gone to pushin' him and have turned him from
potater-bug into a royal Peeruvian tiger, or words to that effect,
and I don't see any way but what you'll have to tame him yourself.
There's feelin' in town that way, and people are scart, and citizens
ain't at all pleased with your pokin' him up, when all was quiet."

"Citizens ruther have it said, hey, that we are supportin' a
land-pirut here in this town, and let him disgrace us even over in
Vienny?" demanded the Cap'n.

"Which was wuss?" inquired Mr. Snell, serenely. "As it was or as it
is?"

Then the ex-constables, driven forth with contumely, went across to
the platform of Broadway's store, and discussed the situation with
other citizens, finding the opinion quite unanimous that Cap'n
Sproul possessed too short a temper to handle delicate matters with
diplomacy. And it was agreed that Aholiah Luce, weak of wit and
morally pernicious, was a delicate matter, when all sides were taken
into account.

To them appeared Aholiah Luce, striding down the middle of the street,
with that ominous sack on his shoulder.

"Be I an outlaw, or ain't I?" he shouted over and over, raising a
clamor in the quiet village that brought the Cap'n out of the town
house. "Arrest me, will ye? When ye try it there won't be nothin'
left of this town but a hole and some hollerin'."

He walked right upon the store platform and into the store, and every
one fled before him.