I never can hope to do justice by the scene which followed. The old Captain strode a step nearer and rested one hand on the corner of Ed Smith's desk, a majestic figure of wrath. [Illustration: "Practical!" he explained. "You are a blackguard, sir! You are a scoundrel, sir!"] "Practical!" he exploded. "You are a blackguard, sir! You are a scoundrel, sir!" He paused, drawing deep breaths. "You're a traitor--you're a _Democrat_." With all his assurance, Ed was completely taken back. He actually looked frightened. The Captain's tone now changed to one of irony. "I suppose," he said, "you believe in flying machines." Ed hesitated. "And in woman suffrage!" The art of scorn has fallen sadly into disrepute in these later days. Scorn fares hardly in an age of doubt and democracy. I can rarely feel it myself; but as it came rolling out of the old Captain that morning, I'll admit there was something grand about it. By this time Ed had begun to recover himself. "Well, we got to live, haven't we?" he asked. It was very rare that the old Captain swore, for he was a sound Churchman, and when he did swear it was with a sort of reverence. "No, by God," said the Captain, "we haven't got to live, we haven't got to live; but, by God! we've got to stand for the nation--and the Constitution--and the Republican party!" He paused, threw back his beautiful old head, and shook his mane just a little. (How he would have liked to see himself at that moment!) "The _Weekly Star_ of Hempfield," he said, "will remain an incorruptible exponent of American institutions. The people may cease to believe in God and the Constitution, but the _Star_ will remain firm and staunch. We shed our blood upon the field of Antietam: we stand ready to shed it again--for the nation, the Grand Old Party, and the high protective tariff. Though beaten upon by stormy seas, we shall remain impregnable." I cannot describe how impregnable the old Captain looked, standing there by Ed's desk, one clenched fist raised aloft. He was at his best, and his best was better than you will often find in these days. But the old Captain could no more understand Ed Smith than Ed could understand him. He would rather have laid his right hand upon living coals of fire than to have taken what he considered a "dirty dollar" for advertising. And yet in his day, no man in Westmoreland County was a keener political manipulator than he. He had traded his influence quite simply and frankly for the public printing. Was it not the natural reward of the faithful party worker? Had he not stumped the state for Blaine? Had not congressmen come to his door with their hats in their hands offering him favours in exchange for his support? And he had travelled always on railroad passes, as was his due as an influential editor, and voted, when a member of the legislature, with sincere belief in the greatness of all captains of industry, for every railroad bill that came up.