“Lemme tell you somethin’, Silas,” said Constable Small, taking his pipe from between his teeth and striking an impressive attitude with it. “They better let him go. If the jedge don’t git the nomination from this deestrict, he’ll upset their apple cart as sure as preachin’. There’ll be three candidates in the primaries, and the party don’t want Rufe Crockett, for he’s a windbag, a turncoat, and a flopper, and he’d be beat at the polls, just as he was four year ago on the ticket of t’other party. But if Jedge Wiggin can’t win, I’ll bet you a twenty-cent plug of War Hoss he turns his strength ag’inst Ephraim Glover, of Palmyra, and throws the nomination to Crockett. This deestrict is the keystone, and if the party loses it, they’ll most likely lose the whole county. I understand the governor himself is ruther fretted over the situation, with the primaries comin’ on next week.” “I don’t keer much about politics nohow,” declared Buzzell, wiping his eyes again. “One party’s bad as t’other, and there ain’t neither of ’em done nothing for me. Still I s’pose I’m expected to vote for the jedge jest because I happened to be the most capable man they could find for this job. Nobody else I know of wanted it. I took it because it promised to be a purty good thing, not because I’m partic’ler agin’ automobilists. I’m goin’ to tell you my private idee: I think Nathan Wiggin’s turned Greenbush into a graveyard by finin’ ev’rybody ketched goin’ faster’n eight miles in the town limits. He’s give the place a black eye and set people to dodgin’ it. He ain’t progressive, that’s ail I got to say.” “And if you’ve got any sense left in your noodle you won’t go round kow-wowing that kind of talk. If you did—— Hey! By gowdy! Here comes a bubble over the hill! Git up! Git out your ticker and ketch him when he passes the big elm. He’s hittin’ it up like a streak of greased quicksilver.” There was immediate action in the shade of the sumacs. With a sniffling grunt, which held something both of protest and eagerness, Weeping Buzzell heaved himself to his feet, fishing for his watch. On the fence Jeremiah Small already had his timepiece in hand. His snaggy teeth gripped the pipestem; his leathery face expressed the rapacity of the still hunter who has sighted game. “Ready, now!” he cried. “Ketch him when I give the word. _Now!_” Down the winding road shot the automobile, trailing a cloud of dust behind it. Besides the driver, a smoothfaced, bespectacled man of thirty, it contained only one person, a stout, florid, worried-looking individual in the middle years of life. “Careful, Hitchens!” warned the latter, as the man at the wheel made a turn that barely prevented them from taking to the ditch. “You know you’re not used to driving. Don’t pile us up.”