"And you can always depend on a certain number of sore-heads to make fools
of themselves here--you could depend on it in the old days; it's worse in
these times when everybody is ready to pitch into a row and clapper-claw
right and left simply because they're aching for a fight."

The closed door had no more revelations to offer to Morrison; he turned
his mystified gaze on the Senator and the Governor as if he desired to
solve at least one of the problems that had come to hand all of a sudden.

"I can take care of things up on Capitol Hill, Morrison! I'm the Governor
of this state and I have been re-elected to succeed myself, and that ought
to be proof that the people are behind me. But I want you to see to it
that the damnation mob-hornets are kept at home in the city here, where
they belong."

"When father kept bees I used to save many a hiveful for him by banging on
mother's dishpan when they started to swarm. As to the hornets--"

"I don't care what you bang on," broke in His Excellency. "On their heads,
if they show them! But do I have your co-operation in the name of law and
order?"

"You may surely depend on me, even if I'm obliged to mobilize Mac Tavish
and his paper-weights," said the mayor, and for the first time in the
memory of Miss Bunker, at least, Mac Tavish flushed; the paymaster had
been hoping that the laird o' St. Ronan's had not noted the full extent of
the belligerency that had been displayed in making mill rules respected.

But the abstraction that had marked Morrison's demeanor when he had looked