Badger replied to the sally with violent language, and the debate was becoming acrimonious when the Squire brusquely advised them to continue their dispute out of doors. His tone was harsher than usual, and his face was troubled. The old men went out, Amazeen shouting further directions to Badger, who hurried ahead, advising lightning rods and fire extinguishers and other appurtenances. Uncle Buck greeted each suggestion with a cackle of laughter. Squire Phin heard them pursuing their furious victim across the square, but he listened with abstracted frown, though at another time the grim jests might have amused him. He took the town note out of the safe and examined it again. Then he pulled down a bundle of small pamphlets bearing the cover inscription, “Town Reports of Palermo.” He studied them with care and at last leaned back in his chair and gazed long at the ceiling. “If I,” he said, softly, “were town treasurer of Palermo and had borrowed seven thousand dollars simply on my own name as treasurer, after the town had voted that two of the selectmen should sign with the treasurer on town loans, and had continued to pay six per cent, for that money after the town had voted to refund all floating indebtedness at four per cent., and, finally, still owed that seven thousand after making oath in my last report that the town owed less than two thousand dollars, why, I--I couldn’t explain it to myself, much less to the voters of this town.” Brickett began to grind coffee again. “Don’t the people of this place buy anything except coffee?” growled the Squire, jumping up and striding around the office. The noise racked his nerves now. “It can’t be,” he muttered. “It’s some mistake or--or----” The recollection of certain gossip he had heard a year before at the county court regarding alleged dealings in stock by “a prominent Palermo man” and his losses occurred to him, and he remembered that he had stoutly averred that no one in his town ever dealt in stocks. He knew that people outside were usually the first to hear of such things, but this was a story that he didn’t believe. This note was there on his table--a document that demanded explanation--a document that could be explained by a desperate man’s financial stress and in no other way. Men did not take such chances for amusement. Aquarius Wharff’s little flute piped away insistently. “What a devilish nuisance that old fool is!” the lawyer growled, and he went along and slammed down the window. Who properly should demand that explanation? Himself as town agent. Brickett was now unheading a barrel, and the clamour made the Squire pound his table with a boyish and futile rage. Every noise jarred on him and the sun didn’t shine in at the windows any longer.