“Vote! Vote!” he screamed, unable to control his passion. He had intended to lead up to his sensation more skilfully. In his rage he now fired it at them like a bombshell. “Vote for what? For a thief to be your town treasurer? For a man that has stolen forty thousand dollars from this town? That’s what you’re votin’ for. I can prove what I say. Now do you want to vote?” He leaned far over, propping himself on the shoulders of the man in front of him, and gave them look for look. His sound eye blazed. He thrust out his arm and shook his long finger at the cowering Judge. “Ask him how many town notes are out with his name on ’em!” he yelled. “Ask him--your honest old town treasurer, who has skun you as he would skin a woodchuck, who has cheated, has stolen------” But now fifty men were on their feet howling threats and epithets at him. “What shall I do?” screamed the moderator, leaning from the platform and appealing to the Squire. “Tell the band to play! Pass the word. Tell the band to play,” the lawyer replied. And the band, not understanding in that din of voices from whom the order had emanated, struck into one of its most clamorous selections, and kept on doggedly despite the hoarse objurgations of Hiram. He finally stood up and wiped his dripping face and let them go on. But he swore under his breath with the vigour of a captain whose own guns had been trained on him. While he stood there, high on the settee, waiting for the band to play through to the end, Hiram singled out several men in the crowd with his eye, and promptly on the heels of the last blare he shouted: “Sumner Badger--you, there, Sum Badger! You, Ezra Mayo! You, Nelson Clark! You are hidin’ town notes with Collamore Willard’s name on ’em. You can’t stand up here in town meetin’ and say that you aren’t. This town thinks it only owes two thousand. Ask those men, you voters! They’ve let Collamore Willard have fifteen thousand between ’em. Ask ’em!” He waited, and the assemblage turned amazed and inquiring gaze on the men. Badger stood up first. “I’m free to say, and I’ll swear it on a stack of Bibles, that there ain’t a cent owin’ me from this town.” “You’re an old liar,” yelled Hiram. “I’ll bet you five thousand dollars, even money, and put it into the hands of any one you say?” Badger shrieked excitedly. “And there’s a taste of your own med’cine that you’ve been so willin’ to ladle out to the rest of us. Put up or shet up!” This sturdy retort caught Hiram napping, and his open mouth and the confusion on his face showed it. The other men whom he had called upon leaped up and made similar overtures of wagers. The crowd began to laugh boisterously.