Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/231

Rh bit grey and lean with iniquitous living, but not more than half-drunk; and he stepped into the middle of the roadway and cut a low reverence to his worship, flinging out his leg like a dancing-master. And says he, in a high cackle, very solemn but mocking:

"I salute thee, O Mayor! Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before thy God."

"Put that dam fool in the stocks!" cried his worship, very red in the gills, and speaking vicious. And Uncle Billy was collared and marched off between two constables, while the procession formed up to lead the new Mayor to church.

Well, that, as it happened, wasn't a lucky start-off for Mr. Cummins's year of office. For no sooner was Billy let out of the stocks than off he went to Lawyer Mennear, who was a young man then just set up in practice, and as keen for a job as a huer for pilchards; and between them they patched up an action for false imprisonment—damages claimed, one hundred pounds.

The case came on at Bodmin, and the Mayor was cast in damages, twenty-five pounds. He paid, of course, though with a very long face. But Billy's revenge didn't stop here. Instead of putting the money by, the old varmint laid it out in the best way he could to annoy his enemy. And the way he contrived it was this. Every free Saturday he'd put a sovereign in his pocket, and start the round of the public-houses—always beginning with Cummins's