“C-court'll hev to app'int an agent?”
“I callate.”
“Er—you a candidate—Sam—you a candidate?”
“Don't know but what I be,” answered the usually wary Mr. Price.
“G-goin' to Harwich—hain't you?”
“Mebbe I be, and mebbe I hain't,” said Sam, not able to repress a self-conscious snicker.
“M-might as well be you as anybody, Sam,” said Jethro, as he drove on.
It was not strange that the idea, thus planted, should grow in Mr. Price's favor as he proceeded. He had been surprised at Jethro's complaisance, and he wondered whether, after all, he had done well to help Chester stir people up at this time. When he reached Harwich, instead of presenting himself promptly at the spinster's house, he went first to the office of Judge Parkinson, as became a prudent man of affairs.
Perhaps there is no need to go into the details of Mr. Price's discomfiture on the occasion of this interview. The judge was by nature of a sour disposition, but he haw-hawed so loudly as he explained to Mr. Price the identity of the road agent that the judge of probate in the next office thought his colleague had gone mad. Afterward Mr. Price stood for some time in the entry, where no one could see him, scratching his head and repeating his favorite exclamation, “I want to know!” It has been ascertained that he omitted to pay his respects to the spinster on that day.
Cyamon Johnson carried the story back to Coniston, where it had the effect of eliminating Mr. Price from local politics for some time to come.