he rest of the spider-legged and frail
surroundings. When they retired to their team he carried the bandbox
held gingerly out in front of him, tiptoeing across the polished
floor.

"What? Me wear that bird-cage?" he roared, when they were out of
hearing. "Not by the great jeehookibus!"

"Yes, you will," returned Hiram, with the calm insistence of a friend.
"You ain't tryin' to make out that what I do ain't all right and proper,
are you?"

Cap'n Sproul checked an apparent impulse to toss the bandbox into
the roadside bushes, and after a moment tucked the thing under the
seat to have it out of the way of his tempted hands. Then he wrenched
off a huge chew of tobacco whose rumination might check his impulse
toward tempestuous language.

He tried the hat on that night in the presence of his admiring wife,
gritting curses under his breath, his skin prickling with resentment.
He swore then that he would never wear it. But on the day of the race
he carried it in its box to the selectman's office, at which common
meeting-place the three judges were to be taken up by the official
barouche of the Smyrna Fair Association.

Under the commanding eye of Hiram Look he put on the head-gear when
the barouche was announced at the door, and went forth into the glare
of publicity with a furtive sense of shame that flushed his cheek.
By splitting the top of his hack, Ferd Parrott, landlord of Smyrna
tavern, had produced a vehicle that somewhat resembled half a
watermelon. Ferd drove, adorned also with a plug hat from the stock
of the Honorable Percival.

Just inside the gate of the fair-grounds waited the Smyrna "Silver
Cornet Band." It struck up "Hail to the Chief," to the violent alarm
of the hack-horses.

"We're goin' to get run away with sure's you're above hatches!"
bellowed Cap'n Sproul, standing up and making ready to leap over the
edge of the watermelon. But Hiram Look restrained him, and the band,
its trombones splitting the atmosphere, led away with a merry march.

When they had circled the track, from the three-quarters pole to the
stand, and the crowd broke into plaudits, Cap'n Sproul felt a bit
more comfortable, and dared to straighten his neck and lift his
head-gear further into the sunshine.

He even forgot the hateful presence of his seat-mate, a huge dog that
Mr. Bickford had invited into the fourth place in the carriage.

"A very valuable animal, gentlemen," he said. "Intelligent as a man,
and my constant com