"You can tell him to come up to my house the moment he comes in."

Unfortunately Mr. Dodd in the office had got into a strained position. He
found it necessary to move a little; the day-book fell heavily to the
floor, and the perspiration popped out all over his forehead. Come out,
Levi Dodd. The Bastille is taken, but there are other fortresses still in
the royal hands where you may be confined.

"Who's in the office?"

"I don't know, sir," answered the clerk, winking at his companion, who
was sorting nails.

In three strides the great man had his hand on the office door and had
flung it open, disclosing the culprit cowering over the day-book on the
floor.

"Mr. Dodd," cried the first citizen, "what do you mean by--?"

Some natures, when terrified, are struck dumb. Mr. Dodd's was the kind
which bursts into speech.

"I couldn't help it, Mr. Worthington," he cried, "they would have it. I
don't know what got into 'em. They lost their senses, Mr. Worthington,
plumb lost their senses. If you'd a b'en there, you might have brought
'em to. I tried to git the floor, but Ezry Graves--"

"Confound Ezra Graves, and wait till I have done, can't you," interrupted
the first citizen, angrily. "What do you mean by putting a bath-tub into
my house with the tin loose, so that I cut my leg on it?"

Mr. Dodd nearly fainted from sheer relief.

"I'll put a new one in to-day, right now," he gasped.

"See that you do," said the first citizen, "and if I lose my leg, I'll
sue you for a hundred thousand dollars."

"I was a-goin' to explain about them losin' their heads at the mass
meetin'--"

"Damn their heads!" said the first citizen. "And yours, too," he may have
added under his breath as he stalked out. It was not worth a swing of the
executioner's axe in these times of war. News had arrived from the state
capital that morning of which Mr. Dodd knew nothing. Certain feudal
chiefs from the North Country, of whose allegiance Mr. Worthington had
felt sure, had obeyed the summons of their old sovereign, Jethro Bass,
and had come South to hold a conclave under him at the Pelican. Those
chiefs of the North Country, with their clans behind them as one man,
what a power they were in the state! What magnificent qualities they had,
in battle or strategy, and how cunning and shrewd was their generalship!
Year after year they came down from their mountains and fought shoulder
to shoulder, and year after year they carried back the lion's s