"Why not?" demanded Ardmore.
"Well, you hear all kinds of things. It was only whispered down there, but they say Osborne was a little too thick with the Appleweight crowd before he was elected governor. He was their attorney, and they were a bad lot for any man to be attorney for. But they haven't caught Appleweight yet."
"Where's he hiding; don't the authorities know?"
"Oh, he's up there in the hills on the state line. His home is as much on one side as the other. He spends a good deal of time in Kildare."
"Kildare?" asked Ardmore, startled at the word.
"Yes, it's the county seat, what there is of it. I hope you never make that town!" and the inquirer bent a commiserating glance upon Ardmore.
"Well, they use jugs there, I know that!" declared Ardmore; whereat the table roared. The unanimity of their applause warmed his heart, though he did not know why they laughed.
"You handle crockery?" asked a man from the end of the table. "Well, I guess Dilwell County consumes a few gross of jugs all right. But you'd better be careful not to whisper jugs too loud here. There's usually a couple of revenue men around town."
They all went together to the office, where they picked up their sample cases and sallied forth for a descent upon the Raleigh merchants; and Ardmore, thus reminded that he was in the crockery business, and that he had a sample in his room, sat down under a tree on the sidewalk at the inn door to consider what he should do with his little brown jug. It had undoubtedly been intended for Governor Dangerfield, who was supposed to be on the train he had himself taken from Atlanta to Raleigh. There had been, in fact, two jugs, but one of them he had tossed back into the hands of the man who had pursued the train at Kildare. Ardmore smoked his pipe and meditated, trying to determine which jug he had tossed back; and after long deliberation, he slapped his knee, and said aloud: