the last
stroke, to-night."

"What we need here," responded the bell-ringer, "is more public-spirited
men. I ain't kickin' on you, Mr. Harkless, no sir; but we want more men
like they got in Rouen; we want men that'll git Main Street paved with
block or asphalt; men that'll put in factories, men that'll act and not
set round like that ole fool Martin and laugh and polly-woggle and make
fun of public sperrit, day in and out. I reckon I do my best for the
city."

"Oh, nobody minds Tom Martin," answered Harkless. "It's only half the
time he means anything by what he says."

"That's jest what I hate about him," returned the bell-ringer in a tone
of high complaint; "you can't never tell which half it is. Look at him
now!" Over in front of the hotel Martin was standing, talking to the row
of coatless loungers who sat with their chairs tilted back against the
props of the wooden awning that projected over the sidewalk. Their faces
were turned toward the court-house, and even those lost in meditative
whittling had looked up to laugh. Martin, his hands in the pockets of
his alpaca coat, his rusty silk hat tilted forward till the wide brim
rested almost on the bridge of his nose, was addressing them in his
one-keyed voice, the melancholy whine of which, though not the words,
penetrated to the court-house steps.

The bell-ringer, whose name was Henry Schofield, but who was known as
Schofield's Henry (popularly abbreviated to Schofields') was moved to
indignation. "Look at him," he cried. "Look at him! Everlastingly goin'
on about my bell! Let him talk, jest let him talk." The supper gong
boomed inside the hotel and Harkless bade the bell-ringer good-night. As
he moved away the latter called after him: "He don't disturb nobody. Let
him talk. Who pays any 'tention to him I'd like to know?" There was a
burst of laughter from the whittlers. Schofields' sat in patient silence
for a full minute, as one who knew that no official is too lofty to
escape the anathemas of envy. Then he sprang to his feet and shook his
fist at Martin, who was disappearing within the door of the hotel. "Go
to Halifax!" he shouted.

The dining-room of the Palace Hotel was a large, airy apartment,
rustling with artistically perforated and slashed pink paper that hung
everywhere, at this season of the year, to lend festal effect as well as
to palliate the scourge of flies. There were six or seven large tables,
all vacant except that at which Columbus Landis