ly embarrassed and uncommunicative that
her affectionate heart was disturbed and grieved.

Then came Constable Zeburee Nute into the presence of the town's
chief executive with a complaint.

"They're gittin' worse'n hornicks round me," he whined, "them
Double-yer T. Double-yers. Want Ferd's place raided for licker. But
I understood you to tell me--"

"I hain't told you northin' about it!" roared the Cap'n, with mighty
clap of open palm on the town ledger.

"Well, you hain't give off orders to raid, seize and diskiver, libel
and destroy," complained the officer.

"What be you, a 'tomatom that don't move till you pull a string, or
be you an officer that's supposed to know his own duty clear, and
follow it?" demanded the first selectman.

"Constables is supposed to take orders from them that's above 'em,"
declared Mr. Nute. "I'm lookin' to you, and the Double-yer T.
Double-yers is lookin' to you."

"Well, if it's botherin' your eyesight, you'd better look t'other
way," growled the Cap'n.

"Be I goin' to raid or ain't I goin' to raid?" demanded Constable
Nute. "It's for you to say!"

"Look here, Nute," said the Cap'n, rising and aiming his forefinger
at the constable's nose as he would have levelled a bulldog revolver,
"if you and them wimmen think you're goin' to use me as a pie-fork
to lift hot dishes out of an oven that they've heated, you'd better
leave go--that's all I've got to say."

"You might just as well know it's makin' talk," ventured the
constable, taking a safer position near the door. A queer sort of
embarrassment that he noted in the Cap'n's visage emboldened him.
"You know just as well as I do that Ferd Parrott has gone and took
to sellin' licker. Old Branscomb is goin' home tea-ed up reg'lar,
and Al Leavitt and Pud Follansby and a half a dozen others are settin'
there all times of night, playin' cards and makin' a reg'lar ha'nt
of it. If Ferd ain't shet up it will be said"--the constable looked
into the snapping eyes of the first selectman and halted
apprehensively.

"It ain't that I believe any such thing, Cap'n Sproul," he declared
at last, breaking an embarrassing silence. "But here's them wimmen
takin' up them San Francisco scandals to study in their Current
Events Club, and when the officers here don't act when complaint is
made about a hell-hole right here in town, talk starts, and it ain't
complimentary talk, either. Pers'n'ly, I feel like a tiger strainin'
at his chain, and I'd like