"Do you think you're an Emp'ror Nero?" inquired Hiram, sarcastically. "And even that old cuss wa'n't so skin-tight as you be. He provided sports for the people, and it helped him hold his job. Hist'ry tells you so."
"There ain't any hist'ry about this," the selectman retorted with emphasis. "It's here, now, present, and up to date. And I can give you the future if you want any predictions. That money ain't goin' to be throwed down a rat-hole in any such way."
"Look here, Cap'n Sproul," said the showman, grinding his words between his teeth, "you've been talkin' for a year past that they'd pushed this job of selectman onto you, and that you didn't propose to hold it."
"Mebbe I did," agreed the Cap'n. "Most like I did, for that's the way I feel about it."
"Then s'pose you resign and let me take the job and run it the way it ought to be run?"
"How would that be—a circus every week-day and a sacred concert Sundays? Judging from your past life and your present talk I don't reckon you'd know how to run anything any different!" This taunt as to his life-work in the show business and his capability stirred all of Hiram's venom.
"I've come here to tell ye," he raged, "that the citizens of this town to a man want ye to resign as first selectman, and let some one in that don't wear brustles and stand with both feet in the trough."
"That's just the reason I won't resign—because they want me to," returned the Cap'n with calm decisiveness. "They got behind me when I wasn't lookin', and picked me up and rammed me into this office, and I've been wantin' to get out ever since. But I'll be cussed if I'll get out, now that they're tryin' to drive me out. I'm interested enough now to stay."
"Say, did you ever try to drive a hog?" demanded the irate old circus-man.
"Yes," said the Cap'n, imperturbably, "I'm tryin' it now—tryin' to drive a whole litter of 'em away from the trough where they want to eat up at one meal what it's taken me a whole year to scrape together."