Trustee Wallace now stood up and cracked his bony knuckles on the table, his weazened face puckered with angry ridges. "I don't need to have a printed catalogue of what Jabe Bickford has done for this town. And I don't need to be told what he's done it for. He's come back from out West, where he stole more money than he knew what to do with, and--" "I protest!" cried President Thurlow Kitchen. "When you say that the Honer'ble J. Percival Bickford has stolen--" "Well, promoted gold-mines, then! It's only more words to say the same thing. And he's back here spendin' his loose change for daily doses of hair-oil talk fetched to him by the beggin' old suckers of this place." "I may be a beggin' old sucker," flared the president, "but I've had enterprise enough and interest in this fair enough to get Mr. Bickford to promise us a present of a new exhibition hall, and it's only right to extend some courtesy to him in return." "It was all right to make him president of the lib'ry association when he built the lib'ry, make him a deacon when he gave the organ for the meetin'-house, give him a banquet and nineteen speeches tellin' him he was the biggest man on earth when he put the stone watering-trough in--all that was all right for them that thought it was all right. But when you let 'Kittle-belly' Bickford--" "Don't you call him that," roared President Kitchen, thumping the table. "Duke, then! Dammit, crown him lord of all! But when you let him hang that pod of his out over the rail of that judges' stand and bust up a hoss-trot programmy that I've been three months gettin' entries for--and all jest so he can show off a white vest and a plug hat and a new gold stop-watch and have the band play 'Hail to the Chief'--I don't stand for it--no, sir!" "The trouble is with you," retorted the president with spirit, "you've razoo-ed and hoss-jockeyed so long you've got the idea that all there is to a fair is a plug of chaw-tobacco, a bag of peanuts, and a posse of nose-whistlin' old pelters skatin' round a half-mile track." "And you and 'Kit'--you and Duke Jabe, leave you alone to run a fair--wouldn't have northin' but his new exhibition hall filled with croshayed tidies and hooked rugs." "Well, I move," broke in Trustee Dunham, "that we git som'ers. I'm personally in favor of pleasin' Honer'ble Bickford and takin' the exhibition hall." "That's right! That's business!" came decisive chorus from the other three trustees. "Let's take the hall." Wallace doubled his gaunt form, propped himself on the table by his skinny arms, and stared from face to face in disgust unutterable. "Take it?" he sneered. "Why, you'll take anything! You're takin' up the air in this room, like pumpin' up a sulky tire, and ain't lettin' it out again! Good-day! I'm goin' out where I can get a full breath." He whirled on them at the door.