Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/230

222 As it happens, the occasion that took their quarrel into the Law Courts is one of the first things I can remember. It was in the year 'twenty-five. Landlord Cummins, by dint of marrying a woman with means (that was my aunt), and walking the paths of repute for eleven years with his funny-shaped calves, got himself elected Mayor of the Borough. You may suppose it was a proud day for him. In those times the borough used to pay the mayor a hundred pounds a year to keep up appearances, and my mother had persuaded my father to hire a window for Election Day opposite the Town Hall, so that she might have the satisfaction of seeing so near a relative in his robes of dignity.

Well, there in the window we were gathered on that July forenoon (for the mayors in those back-a-long days weren't chosen in November as they are now), and the sun—it was a bright day—slanting high down our side of the street, and my mother holding me tight as we leaned out, for I was just rising five, and extraordinary heavy in the head. And out upon the steps of the Town Hall stepped Landlord Cummins, Mayor, with the town crier and maces before him, and his robes hanging handsomely about his calves, and his beaver hat and all the rest of the paraphernalia, prepared to march to church.

While he stood there, bowing to a score of people, and looking as big as bull's beef, who should step out from the pavement under us but Uncle Billy Bosistow! He was a ragged old scarecrow, turned a