There was no doubt about his duty. The note must be shown to the selectmen. He picked it up, put it into his pocketbook, hesitated at the door, then hastily went back to the safe, tucked it into the most remote pigeon-hole, slammed the safe door and whirled the lock knob vigorously. “No, sir,” he muttered as he went down the stairs, “this isn’t a thing to prick with a crowbar. It needs a fine needle. There’s a woman to be considered first, and, by the gods! there’s no steer-team of selectmen going to walk over her to get to her father--no matter how the land lies.” He stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back at his office door with a singular air of apprehension, as though he had left there some ugly and hideous object. “No, it can’t be.” He stamped his foot upon the turf. “It isn’t the Willard stripe to do a thing like that. He’s a hog, but not a thief. I guess I’ll go and sit under the old poplars and think about it a bit.” As he walked along the street he remembered what Badger had said about his brother Hiram’s activity in the matter of that town note. CHAPTER X--HIRAM LOOK PULLS IN SIMON PEAK FROM THE FLOTSAM OF LIFE FOR GOOD AND SUFFICIENT REASONS Foster the tinker traversed Maine From Elkinstown to Kittery Point, With a rattling pack and a rattling brain, And a general air of “out of joint.” A gaunt, old chap with a shambling gait, A battered hat and rusty clothes, With grimy digits in sorry state, And a smooch on the end of his big red nose. That was the way that Foster went-- Mixture of shrewdness and folly blent, Mending the pots and pans as ordered, But leaving the leak in his nob unsoldered. --From “Ballads of the Wayfarers.” Hiram was on the porch in his favourite attitude, his chair tipped against the wall, his tall hat on the back of his head, his thumb hooked into the armhole of his vest. He rolled his cigar across his tongue and looked at his brother with a sidewise, suspicious glance as the Squire sat down on the edge of the platform. The lawyer remembered suddenly that he had seen that look on Hiram’s face frequently of late. It was the wary expression of a man who feared that he might be called on to defend himself. “I thought I’d run up to the house and sit down for a spell, Hime. The loafers down there get on my nerves once in a while.” The Squire noted the instant relief on Hiram’s face. The cigar rolled back to the other corner of his mouth and perked itself with new assurance. “I don’t blame you, Phin. That’s why I keep away from Brickett’s. I can jaw ’em off the premises, here, when they get to bothering me.”