"Go home, foolish wife!" The Mayor was not smiling now, and his
voice took on a terrible sternness. "The woman I mean is the woman
John Mennear married, or thought he married; the woman that aforetime
had kept her own counsel though he caught and kissed her in a dimmety
corner of the street; the woman that swore to love, honour and obey
him, not she that tongue-drove him to the 'King of Prussia,' with his
own good liquor to keep him easy at home. Drunk he must have been to
mistake the one for t'other; and I'm willing to fine him for
drunkenness. But cite that other woman here before you ask me for a
separation order, and I'll grant it; and I'll warrant when John sees
you side by side, he won't oppose it."
Here and there our Mayor had his detractors, no doubt. What public
man has not? He incurred the reproach of pride, for instance, when
he appeared, one wet day, carrying an umbrella, the first ever seen
in Troy. A Guernsey merchant had presented him with this novelty
(I may whisper here that our Mayor did something more than connive at
the free trade) and patently it kept off the rain. But would it not
attract the lightning? Many, even among his well-wishers, shook
their heads. For their part they would have accepted the gift, but
it should never have seen the light: they would have locked it away
in their chests.
Oddly enough the Mayor nourished his severest censor in his own
household.
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