“I’ll buy ’em myself,” cried Hiram, stoutly. “Great Caesar, what’s a little expense beside good band music when a man’s hungry for it? I’ll buy the instruments, I’ll buy the uniforms--it’ll be my band, and I’ll buy a bearskin cap for Sime, here, six feet tall, and advertise him for the tallest drum-major in the State. Why, hustlin’ Cicero, men,” he cried, as his enthusiasm warmed his showman’s heart, “I can make Look’s Cornet Band an organisation that will be wanted in ev’ry parade from Quoddy to the Scarb’ro clam flats. And when your young friend Wat Mayo, Phin, gets ahead of that band in his spick-and-span uniform, you won’t have any more trouble about any critter ever cuttin’ him out with his wife. Why, she’ll love him to death!” He stamped his big foot on the piazza and laughed. “I knew there was something I was hankerin’ for,” he chuckled. “’Twas a band. Why, we can serenade you, Phin, when you get elected Congressman or hog-reeve or culler of staves or to some other high office.” “Of course, you are able to have such a plaything, Hime,” said the Squire, without enthusiasm, “and if it helps poor Wat Mayo to get out of his troubles I reckon the rest of us ought to be willing to stand the hullabaloo.” With a rather grim smile he left them and went around into his kitchen. “Sime,” said the showman after he had smoked reflectively for some time, “I have taken you in with me as a sort of a side partner. It’s no use--there’s a few things that Phin and I can’t hitch hosses on, and they are things that’s derned important to me. No matter what they are, not jest now, at any rate. But I don’t mind tellin’ you that there’s more comin’ out of that Palermo Cornet Band than biff-bangs and toodle-oos. The thought of gettin’ it up was an inspiration--that’s what it was. You see now what comes of doin’ a good deed! Gettin’ that girl back makes us talk about Mayo, and from Mayo to a job for him, and thus around to the band. Yess’r, a good deed brings it own reward. Now, I ain’t popular with the people of this place. I want to be popular, but I never could cater to the old moss-backs by soft-soapin’ ’em. To do what I’ve set out to do I need to have a followin’. Now I’m goin’ to start that band, pay ’em wages when they play, furnish free concerts and music for dances, and if I ain’t popular then, why, I don’t know my people, that’s all.” “Goin’ to run for office, I persume?” suggested Simon.