bark; he kept his mouth shut, however.

But his silence was more baleful than any sounds he could have uttered; it
was a sort of ominous, canine silence, covering a hankering to get in a
good bite if the opportunity was ever offered.

It was the rabble o' the morning--the crowd waiting to see His Honor the
Mayor--on the other side of the rail. It was the sacrilegious invasion of
a business office in the hours sacred to business. It was like that every
morning. It was just as well that the taciturn Mac Tavish considered that
his general principle of cautious reserve applied to this situation as it
did to matters of business in general, otherwise the explosion through
that wicket some morning would have blown out the windows. Mac Tavish did
not understand politics. He did not approve of politics. Government was
all right, of course. But the game of running it, as the politicians
played the game! Bah!

He had taken it upon himself to tell the politicians of the city that
Stewart Morrison would never accept the office of mayor. Mac Tavish had
frothed at the mouth as he rolled his r's and had threshed the air with
his fist in frantic protest. Stewart Morrison was away off in the
mountains, hunting caribou on the only real vacation he had taken in half
a dozen years--and the city of Marion took advantage of a good man, so Mac
Tavish asserted, to shove him into the job of mayor; and a brass band was
at the station to meet the mayor and the howling mob lugged him into City
Hall just as he was, mackinaw jacket, jack-boots, woolen Tam, rifle and
all--and Mac Tavish hoped the master would wing a few of 'em just to show
his disapprobation. In fact, it was allowed by the judicious observers
that the new mayor did display symptoms of desiring to pump lead into the
cheering assemblage instead of being willing to deliver a speech of