“I don’t know, Mooney,” he observed. “When a man of my age has been as sick as I was he doesn’t get up again in a minute. However, I’m not dead, and that is something. No, I’m not even as dead as--well, as some folks think I am. Have a cigar?” Mooney accepted the cigar. Townsend also took one and they lit and smoked. The captain mentioned the fine weather they had for the past few days, also the promise of a good cranberry crop that fall. “You will be glad of that, Mooney,” he observed. “Everybody knows you are the father of that cranberry bill that has done so much for us in this section.” The Congressman glanced at him. The Townsend face was grave, there was not even the faintest twinkle in the Townsend eye. Nevertheless Mr. Mooney’s slight uneasiness became a shade less slight. Was this man making fun of him? It was time he found out. “Yes--yes, of course,” he said. “Well, Cap’n Townsend,” leaning easily back in his chair and knocking the ashes from his cigar, “what was it you wanted to talk over with me? A little politics, eh?” Townsend nodded. “You’ve guessed it,” he said. “It was a little matter of politics. I never should have dared bother as busy a man as you are with anything but business.” This was overdoing it a trifle. Mooney was not an absolute fool and his suspicion that he was being made fun of became more of a certainty. He cleared his throat, and frowned slightly. “I see,” he said, more brusquely. “Yes, I see.... Well, Cap’n Townsend, for old times’ sake I should like to oblige you if I can. What do you want? What can I do for you?” Townsend blew a cloud of smoke and fanned it from before his face with his hand. “You can’t do anything for me, Mooney,” he answered. “You’ve done all you can do for me by coming here to-night. As far as that is concerned I could have managed to get along if you hadn’t come.... So,” with an ominous change in his tone, “I wouldn’t put it just that way if I were you. Mooney, when you started to pitch Reliance Clark out of our post office and squeeze Sim Thacher into it why did you do it behind my back? Why did you hide it from me?” So it was the post office matter, after all. In a way Mooney was relieved. That battle was won. His countenance assumed an expression of pained resentment. “Nonsense, Cap’n Townsend,” he said, with lofty indignation. “Nonsense! Whoever told you I have been hiding anything--lied, that’s all. You were sick--”