"Would you let me have a light?" he inquired politely. "H-ff! h-ff!" The boss swallowed quite a little smoke, but recovered and passed over his cigar. Tim took his light from it, said "Thanks!" briefly, and--puff-puff--contemplated the boss's stout henchman in the rusty clothes, who was still standing irresolutely at one side. "Smoke?" inquired Tim suddenly, and thrust a cigar at him. "Wh-h--" stuttered the henchman, and then almost snatched it from Tim's hand. "You gettin' hard o' hearin'? Thought I told you to get along!" snapped Malone. "I am goin' along," returned the husky voice, "soon's I light up." In the curling of the smoke from the corner of his mouth, in the whoofing of it toward the ceiling, in the squaring of the thick shoulders as he passed out--there was a hint of rebellion. "You may be the boss," thought Tim, "but your grip isn't too sure." And turning squarely on Malone he observed genially: "Fine day." "H-p-p--" Malone stared fixedly at Tim. Tim stared back. Tim was rapidly developing a feeling of respect for the man. Tim knew the kind. A few years back he had been such an uncompromising one himself, who would have whipped off his coat, as no doubt Malone would now, and battled on the spot in preference to verbal argument. "It is a fine day," responded Malone slowly; "but accordin' to my dope it ain't goin' to be half so fine a night." From behind the cigar-case came a giggle, and from the boss himself came an after-chuckle and a pleased little smile. "Why, it's not going to rain, is it?" asked Tim, and with an appropriately innocent manner he stepped to the door to look at the sky; and in looking he saw not the sky, but the widow Nolan, with some odds and ends of firewood, making her halting way against the wind. "The poor creature!" murmured Tim; and while pitying her the plan came to him. "Gentlemen," he said over his shoulder, "I have to be off; but before going I cordially invite you and all your friends to the town hall to-night, to discuss the issues of the campaign. Good day, gentlemen." And through the door, before it closed after him, he could hear the cackle of the man behind the cigar-case: "Is it going to rain! Say, Buck, you won't do a thing to him to-night, will yuh?" III With his greeting of "Good afternoon to you, Mrs. Nolan!" Tim stowed the widow's little bundle under his left arm. "And good afternoon to you, sir; but you'll be sp'iling your fine clothes, sir!" "And if I do it's small loss." He gripped her right elbow. "It's the hard walking it is, Mrs. Nolan--what with the wind and the steep hill and an old lady of your age." "Oh, yeh, it is--coming on to seventy-five." "Seventy-five? And you still hopping about active as a grasshopper! A great age that. 'Tis little, I'm afraid, many of us young ones will be thinking of climbing steep hillsides when we're coming on to seventy-five. 'Tis you was the active one in your young days, I'll wager."