Seth delivered his errand, saying that his brother John wished to see Milton, as soon as he returned, in the living-room. The hired man gave the speaker a curious glance, and, after a moment or two of hand warming, went in to learn what was wanted. Almost as he closed the door behind him, the Sheriff entered the kitchen from the outside, and after an interrogative glance toward Beekman, which the latter answered by a nod, drew up a chair leisurely by the stove. “Who’d a thought it ’d a turned out so cold, ‘fore the moon changed?” he asked of the company collectively. “Hev yeh got any cider abaout handy? ’N’ a daoughnut, tew, ef yeh don’t mine.” While Melissa was in the cellar, the Sheriff, who was a Spartacus man and a stranger to both Seth and the females, asked of Beekman: “What did yeh agree on fer a sign?” “Th’ shakin’ of th’ stove.” Seth had been annoyed all day at the pains taken by John to keep the facts of the enterprise now in hand from him, and he displayed so much of this pique in the glance he now cast from the Sheriff to Beekman, that the latter felt impelled to speak: “P’raps you disremember my askin’ yeh ’t’ other day ’baout whether yer brother had much money on him that night. Well, we’ve settled thet point. He did hev’--’n’ ’twas a considerable sum tew--‘baout sixteen thaousan’ dollars.” “No!” Seth’s exclamation was of incredulous surprise. “Yes, sixteen thaousan’. We knaow it.” “Oh! I remember now,” said Seth, searching his impressions of the night. “I remember that when I said he might fail to be nominated, he slapped his breast two or three times as if he had something in the pocket. By George! I wonder----” “Yeh needn’t waste no more time wond’rin’. Thet was it! ’N’ d’yeh knaow what he was goin’ to dew with thet money? No, yeh daon’t! He was agoin’ to buy me! I wouldn’t say this afore aoutsiders; I dunnao’s I’d say it to yeou ef your paper wa’n’t so dum fond o’ pitchin’ into me fer a boss, ’n’ a machine man ez yeh call it, ’n’ thet kine o’ thing. Yer brother hed th’ same idee o’ me thet your paper’s got. He was wrong. They tell me ther air’ some country caounties in th’ State where money makes th’ mare gao. But Jay ain’t one of ’em. Yer brother wanted to git into Congress. Ther was nao chance fer him in New York City. He come up here ’n’ he worked things pooty fine, I’m baoun’ to say, but he slipped up on me. Bribes may dew in yer big cities, but they won’t go daown in Jay. I don’t b’lieve they’s ez much of it done anywhere ez folks think, nuther.” “But this money, then, was----”