"This is the blastedest town a man ever settled down in to spend his last days in peace and quietness," growled the Cap'n. "There's a set of men here that seem to be perfickly happy so long as they're rollin' up a gob of trouble, sloppin' a little sweet-oil and molasses on the outside and foolin' some one into swallerin' it. I tell ye, Look, I've lived here a little longer than you have, and when you see a man comin' to offer you what they call an honor, kick him on general principles, and kick him hard." "Doctors ought to be willin' to take their own medicine," retorted Hiram, grimly. "Here you be, first selec'man and--" "They caught me when I wa'n't lookin'--not bein' used to the ways of land-piruts," replied the Cap'n, gloomily. "I was tryin' to warn you as one that's been ahead and knows." "Why, that's just what I like about this town," blurted Hiram, undismayed. "When I came home to Palermo a year ago or so, after all my wanderin's, they wouldn't elect me so much as hog-reeve--seemed to be down on me all 'round. But here--heard what they did last night?" There was pride in his tones. "They elected me foreman of the Smyrna Ancient and Honer'ble Firemen's Association." "And you let 'em hornswoggle you into takin' it?" demanded the Cap'n. "Leather buckets, piazzy hat, speakin'-trumpet, bed-wrench, and puckerin'-string bag are in my front hall this minit," said Hiram, cheerily, "and the wife is gittin' the stuff together for the feed and blow-out next week. I'm goin' to do it up brown!" The Cap'n opened his mouth as though to enter upon revelations. But he shut it without a word. "It ain't no use," he reflected, his mind bitter with the memories of his own occupancy of that office. "It's like the smallpox and the measles; you've got to have a run of 'em yourself before you're safe from ketchin' 'em." The Honorable J. Percival Bickford, rotund and suave with the mushiness of the near-gentleman, met them graciously in the hall, having waited for the servant to announce them. Hiram did most of the talking, puffing at one of the host's long cigars. Cap'n Sproul sat on the edge of a spider-legged chair, great unhappiness on his countenance. Mr. Bickford was both charmed and delighted, so he said, by their acceptance, and made it known that he had suggested them, in his anxiety to have only gentlemen of standing associated with him. "As the landed proprietors of the town, as you might say," he observed, "it becomes us as due our position to remove ourselves a little from the herd. In the judges' stand we can, as you might say, be patrons of the sports of the day, without loss of dignity. I believe--and this is also my suggestion--that the trustees are to provide an open barouche, and we will be escorted from the gate to the stand by a band of music. That will be nice. And when it is over we will award the prizes, as I believe they call it--"