"I've concluded to take up my abode in this old town," said Brent, with something of a sheepish smile. "Seems queer, no doubt, but my mind's fixed. And so, look here, you don't know anybody that's got a bit of real estate to sell--nice little house, or something of that sort? If so----" Tansley thrust his letters and papers aside, pushed an open box of cigars in his visitor's direction, and lighting one himself became inquisitively attentive. "What's the game?" he asked. Brent lighted a cigar and took two or three meditative puffs at it before answering this direct question. "Well," he said at last, "I don't think that I'm a particularly sentimental sort of person, but all the same I'm not storm-proof against sentiment. And I've just got the conviction that it's up to me to go on with my cousin's job in this place." Tansley took his cigar from his lips and whistled. "Tall order, Brent!" he remarked. "So I reckon," assented Brent. "But I've served an apprenticeship to that sort of thing. And I've always gone through with whatever came in my way." "Let's be plain," said Tansley. "You mean that you want to settle here in the town, and go on with Wallingford's reform policy?" "That's just it," replied Brent. "You've got it." "All I can say is, then, that you're rendering yourself up to--well, not envy, but certainly to hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, as it's phrased in the Prayer Book," declared Tansley. "You'll have a hot old time!" "Used to 'em!" retorted Brent. "You forget I've been a press-man for some years." "But you didn't get that sort of thing?" suggested Tansley, half incredulous. Brent flicked the ash from his cigar and smiled. "Don't go in for tall talk," he said lazily. "But it was I who tracked down the defaulting directors of the Great Combined Amalgamation affair, and ran to earth that chap who murdered his ward away up in Northumberland, and found the Pembury absconding bank-manager who'd scooted off so cleverly that the detectives couldn't trace even a smile of him! Pretty stiff propositions, all those! And I reckon I can do my bit here in this place, on Wallingford's lines, if I get the right to intervene, as a townsman. That's what I want--_locus standi_." "And when you've got it?" asked Tansley. Brent worked his cigar into the corner of his firm lips and folding his arms stared straight in front of him. "Well," he said slowly, "I think I've fixed that in my own mind, fixed it all out while the parson was putting him away in that old churchyard this morning--I was thinking hard while he was reading his book. I understand that by my cousin's death there's a vacancy in the Town Council--he sat for some ward or other?" "He sat for the Castle Ward, as Town Councillor," assented Tansley. "So of course there's a vacancy." "Well," continued Brent, "I reckon I'll put up for that vacancy. I'll be Mr. Councillor Richard Brent!" "You're a stranger, man!" laughed Tansley.