"Hold on," counselled Mr. Luce. "You're goin' to squdgin' me ag'in. I've been sassed enough in this town. I'm goin' to be treated with respect after this if I have to blow up ev'ry buildin' in it."
"It ain't safe to go to pokin' him up," advised Mr. Nute from afar. "I should think you'd 'a' found that out by this time, Cap'n Sproul."
"I've found out that what ain't cowards here are thieves,'" roared the Cap'n, beside himself, ashamed, enraged at his impotence before this boastful fool and his grim bulwark. His impulse was to cast caution to the winds and rush upon Luce. But reflection told him that, in this flush of his childish resentment and new prominence, Luce was capable of anything. Therefore he prudently held to the side of the road.
"The next time I come into this village," said Mr. Luce, "I don't propose to be called names in public by any old salt hake that has pounded his dollars out of unfort'nit' sailors with belayin'-pins. I know your record, and I ain't afeard of you!"
"There'll be worse things happen to you than to be called names."
"Oh, there will, hey?" inquired Mr. Luce, his weak passion flaming. "Well, lemme give you jest one hint that it ain't safe to squdge me too fur!"
He walked back a little way, lighted the fuse of the stick of dynamite that he carried, and in spite of horrified appeals to him, cast over the shoulders of fleeing citizens, he tossed the wicked explosive into the middle of the square and ran.
In the words of Mr. Snell, when he came out from behind the watering-trough: "It was a corn-cracker!"
A half-hour later Mr. Nute, after sadly completing a canvass of the situation, headed a delegation that visited Cap'n Sproul in the selectman's office, where he sat, pallid with rage, and cursing.
"A hundred and seventeen lights of glass," announced Mr. Nute, "includin' the front stained-glass winder in the meetin'-house and the big light in Broadway's store. And it all happened because the critter was poked up agin'—and I warned ye not to do it, Cap'n."