"Those things would kind of give you a notion he'd steal, give him a fair chance," commented Hiram, dryly.
"He's stole ever since—everything from carpet tacks to a load of hay," snapped the constable, "till folks don't stop to think he's stealin'. He's got to be like rats and hossflies and other pests—you cuss 'em, but you reckon they've come to stay."
"I've abated some of the nuisances in this town," stated the Cap'n, "and I cal'late I'm good for this one, now that it's been stuck under my nose. Why haven't you arrested him in times past, same as you ought to have done?"
"Wasn't any one who would swear out complaints," said the constable. "He's allus been threatenin' what kairosene and matches would do to barns; and it wouldn't be no satisfaction to send 'Liah Luce to State Prison—he ain't account enough. It wouldn't pay the loser for a stand of buildin's—havin' him there."
Cap'n Sproul began to understand some of the sane business reasons that guaranteed the immunity of Aholiah Luce, so long as he stuck to petty thieving. But this international matter of the town of Vienna seemed to the first selectman of Smyrna to be another sort of proposition. And he surveyed the recalcitrant Mr. Luce with malignant gaze.
"I've never seen you backed down by nobody," vouchsafed the admiring constable, anxious to shift his own responsibility and understanding pretty well how to do it. "I've allus said that if there was any man could run this town the way it ought to be run you was the man to do it."
Cap'n Sproul was not the kind to disappoint the confident flattery of those who looked up to him. He buttoned his pea-jacket, and set his hat firmly on his head. Mr. Luce noted these signs of belligerency and braced his firedog legs.
"It's the meek that shall inherit, ye want to remember that!" croaked Mrs. Luce. "And the crowned heads and the high and mighty—where will they be then?"
"They won't be found usin' a stolen cook-stove and quotin' Scriptur'," snorted the Cap'n in disgust.
"It ain't been stole," insisted Mr. Luce. "It was bought reg'lar, and it can't be took away without mollywhackin' my house—and I've got the law on my side that says you can't do it."