of their pipes.

It is one of the merits of cut-plug for smoking that a well-filled pipe gives a long smoke. Amos Caretall’s pipe lasted three quarters of an hour before the last embers were drowned in the moisture at the bottom of the bowl. He knocked out the loose ashes into his palm, leaving the half-burned cake in the bottom of the pipe to serve as priming for a later smoke, and then stuffed the pipe affectionately away into his pocket.

Peter was still puffing at his, and Amos watched him for a little, and then he chuckled softly to himself. Gergue looked across at him in faint surprise. Amos chuckled harder, began to laugh, laughed aloud--and instantly was as sober as a judge.

“Peter,” he said slowly, “what you reckon Winthrop Chase, Senior, would up and do if he was licked for Mayor?”

Gergue considered for a moment, then seriously judged: “He’d up and lay him an egg.”

Amos nodded. “And eggs will be worth fifty cents a dozen, right here in Hardiston, inside a month. It might pay to have him lay one, Pete.”"You’ll need a political Lay-or-Bust for that, Amos."
“I’ve got one, Peter.”
Gergue stared slowly at Amos, his eyes ponderously inquisitive. At length he asked: “What brand?”
Amos leaned toward him quickly. “Almost any good man could beat Chase, couldn’t he, Pete?”
“He might have--starting at the first go off. He couldn’t now.”
“Chase ain’t rightly popular.”
“No--he puts on too many airs.”
“Hardiston’d like to see a joke on him--now wouldn’t it?”
“Sure. A man always can laugh at a joke on the other fellow. Special if it’s on old Chase.”
“Pete--I kind of like Congress.”
Gergue nodded. “Don’t blame you a speck.”
“I want to keep a-going back there.”
“Fair enough.”
“But you say, yourself, that Chase don’t agree with me on that.”
“He says so too.”
Amos tapped Gergue’s knee. “Pete, wouldn’t a good, smashing joke on Chase put him out of the running for a spell?”
Gergue considered. “I’ll say this, Amos,” he announced at length. “A joke on a man is all right, if it don’t go too far. If you go too far, you’ll make ’em sorry for Chase, and then there’ll be no stopping ’em. Politics sure does love a martyr. But--short o’ that--a joke’s good medicine.”
Caretall sat up quickly. “That’s fine,” he said soberly. “That’s fine,” he repeated. And he fell silent, and after a little said, half aloud and for the third time, “Peter, that’s fine.”
Peter’s 

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