ger it?"

The Cap'n finished kicking the sack down into the hole beside the
rocks, clacked shut his knife-blade, and rammed the knife deep into
his trousers pocket.

"When you critters here in town get to be grown up to be more than
ten years old," he grunted, surveying the gaping graybeards of Smyrna,
"and can understand man's business, I may talk to you. Just now I've
got something to attend to besides foolishness."

And he trudged back into the town house, with his fellow-citizens
staring after him, as the populace of Rome must have stared after
victorious Caesar.

XXXI

For some weeks the town of Smyrna had been witnessing something very
like a bear-baiting.

Cap'n Aaron Sproul, first selectman, again played the role of the
bear, as he had on occasions previous.

They had stalked him; they had flanked him; they had surrounded him;
they had driven him to centre; he was at bay, bristling with a sullen
rage that was excusable, if viewed from the standpoint of an earnest
town officer. Viewed from the standpoint of the populace, he was a
selfish, cross-grained old obstructionist.

Here was the situation: By thrift and shrewd management he had
accumulated during his reign nearly enough funds to pay off the town
debt and retire interest-bearing notes. He had proposed to make that
feat the boast and the crowning point of his tenure of office. He
had announced that on a certain day he would have a bonfire of those
notes in the village square. After that announcement he had listened
for plaudits. What he did hear were resentful growls from taxpayers
who now discovered that they had been assessed more than the running
expenses of the town called for; and they were mad about it. The
existence of that surplus seemed to worry Smyrna. There were many
holders of town notes for small amounts, a safe investment that paid
six per cent. and escaped taxation. These people didn't want to be
paid. In many cases their fathers had loaned the money to the town,
and the safe and sound six per cent. seemed an heirloom too sacred
to be disturbed.

Cap'n Sproul's too-zealous thrift annoyed his townsmen. To have the
town owe money made individual debtors feel that owing money was not
a particularly heinous offence. To have the town free of debt might
start too enterprising rivalry in liquidation.

Therefore, for the first time in his life, Consetena Tate found one
of his wild notions adopted, and gasped in profound astonishm