"Aims to be the next mayor, doesn't he?" "No, worse than that: he's going to be representative from this county in the next legislature!" "Bob Sasnett will have something to say about that. He told me to-day he might run. That means he will." "Well, he hasn't got anything else to do. He's the only man in town who is independent of Mike. He can furnish his own campaign fund. Good night!" said Coleman, determined to be gone this time. "Wonder what's the matter with Coleman," muttered Acres, hurrying to meet Carter, the editor of the _Signal_, only to see him vanish into the drugstore. "Wonder what's the matter with everybody. Hello, Colonel Adams, that you?" "Yesh, it's me, Mabel; whatcher want," answered the Colonel, bracing himself against the courthouse. He always called Acres "Mabel," after his wife. "Well, how do you feel--pretty good?" said the little gossip, grinning up in the old red face. "No, shur! I do not. I feel like a child on a cold night wish all the bedclothes pulled off me--thatsh how I feel. How do you feel?" "Same here, Colonel!" [Illustration: "'_I want to ash you a delicate question--where ish the ladies? I 'aven't sheen a woman in four hours_'"] "Mabel, me boy," whispered the old man, swaying gently as he attempted to fix his eyes upon the other's face, "I want to ash you a delicate question: where ish the ladies? I haven't sheen a woman in four hours, Mabel! Think of that and in a town full of the pretties' women in thish state. What does it mean? Thash what I want to ash you. I'm famished, I'm thirshty, for the shight of a pretty face!" "That's so," said Acres; "what does it mean? Hadn't thought of it before, but----" "Oh, my God! what would thish world be without the ladies, Mabel! If we wish 'em like thish in four hours, how could we live wishout 'em forever! We could not, shur!" He began to weep, a poor old man of the past, standing in the twilight of the village street, looking up and down like a lost child crying for its mother. Then he moved on, refusing "Mabel's" arm. Men began to close their offices and shops; window sashes banged; keys rattled in locks. More men appeared upon the streets. They lighted cigars, loitered, not quite ready yet to go home. When a man knows his wife and daughters are at home, he feels safe. He is in no hurry to be there himself. This was the hour when every man in Jordantown was accustomed to know that. If any one had asked a single one of them the question, "Where's your wife?" he would have answered, "At home, of course!" It was only the Colonel, half seas over, who had his doubts, but the Colonel was notoriously psychic where women were concerned. At this very moment a queer thing happened: a stream of women poured into the square and took their way down both sides of it, almost treading upon the toes of the men as they passed. And they were walking leisurely.