He opened the door and stepped inside, but the mayor did not look up with his usual smile; he was sulking, and from time to time he rubbed his head where the butcher had struck him. “How do, Stitz,” said the editor. “How's the mayor?” The cobbler pulled his waxed threads angrily through a tough bit of leather, and did not look up. “I am no more a mayor,” he said crossly. “I am out of that mayor job. I give him up. I haf been insulted.” “I saw it,” the editor assured him. “He gave you a good whack. Sounded like a wet plank falling on a marble slab. Mad about the fire-extinguishers business, wasn't he?” “And why?” asked the mayor, looking up for the first time, “he has a right to obey those ordinances and not get mad.” “Oh, but he don't like the way folks will laugh at him when they learn the joke you have played on him. That was a good one.” “Joke?” queried the mayor, growing brighter. “Did I play him one joke?” “You know,” said T. J. “Making him buy those lung-testers of Miss Briggs' when he thought they were fire-extinguishers. I should say it WAS a joke!” “Sit down,” said the mayor; “don't hang on those straps when seats is enough and plenty. Sit down. So I joked him, yes?” “Rather,” said the editor, “and Guthrie, too, making him pay that graft.” “Sure!” grinned the cobbler. “I got goot grafts. Apples, and potatoes, and celery, and peas, and chickens! Five grafts for one such little ordinances. Grafts is a good business, but now is all over. I quit me that boss-grafter job. I like me not such kloppings on the head. Next comes such riots, and revolutionings. I quit first.” He sewed steadily for a while then prepared another thread, waxing it, and twisting the bristle on either end. “That fire-extinguishers joke,” he said, as he ran the ball of wax up and down the thread; “that was a good one, yes? On Skinner. That makes me a revenge on Skinner for such a klop on the head, yes?” He adjusted the shoe on his knee, and began to sew again. “Yes,” he said, “I am glad I make that joke on Skinner. What was it?” “Come now!” said T. J. “Don't pretend such innocence, Stitz. Don't try to fool ME. You knew all the time that those fire-extinguishers were nothing but lung-testers.” The mayor looked puzzled, and properly, for he had never heard of lung-testers. “To test lungs,” explained the editor. “To show how many pounds a man can blow; how much wind his lungs will hold; a sort of game, like pitching horseshoes. They are not worth anything to Skinner. He paid his money for them for nothing. He will have to buy four genuine fire-extinguishers now. That was what made him mad at you.”