a good excuse. I b'lieve the law says that ye can't put a man twice
in peril of his life."

Cap'n Sproul's stormy relinquishment of the hateful honor that had
been foisted upon him by the Smyrna fire-fighters was history recent
enough to give piquant relish to the present situation. He had not
withheld nor modified his threats as to what would happen to any other
committee that came to him proffering public office.

The more prudent among Smyrna's voters had hesitated about making
the irascible ex-mariner a candidate for selectman's berth.

But Smyrna, in its placid New England eddy, had felt its own little
thrill from the great tidal wave of municipal reform sweeping the
country. It immediately gazed askance at Colonel Gideon Ward, for
twenty years first selectman of Smyrna, and growled under its breath
about "bossism." But when the search was made for a candidate to run
against him, Smyrna men were wary. Colonel Ward held too many
mortgages and had advanced too many call loans not to be well
fortified against rivals.

"The only one who has ever dared to twist his tail is his
brother-in-law, the Cap'n," said Odbar Broadway, oracularly, to the
leaders who had met in his store to canvass the political situation.
"The Cap'n won't be as supple as some in town office, but he ain't
no more hell 'n' repeat than what we've been used to for the last
twenty years. He's wuth thutty thousand dollars, and Gid Ward can't
foreclose no mo'gidge on him nor club him with no bill o' sale. He's
the only prominunt man in town that can afford to take the office
away from the Colonel. What ye've got to do is to go ahead and elect