It was a bland June morning. The Hon. Thelismer Thornton was bland, too,
in agreement with the weather. A good politician always agrees with what
cannot be helped.
He stood in the door of "The Barracks" and gazed out upon the rolling
St. John hills--a lofty, ponderous hulk of a man, thatched with white
hair, his big, round face cherubic still in spite of its wrinkles. He
lighted a cigar, and gazed up into the cloudless sky with the mental
endorsement that it was good caucus weather. Then he trudged out across
the grass-plot and climbed into his favorite seat. It was an arm-chair
set high in the tangle of the roots of an overturned spruce-tree. The
politicians of the county called that seat "The Throne," and for a
quarter of a century the Hon. Thelismer Thornton had been nicknamed "The
Duke of Fort Canibas." Add that the nicknames were not ill bestowed.
Such was the Hon. Thelismer Thornton.
He had brought newspapers in his pockets. He set his eyeglasses on his
bulging nose, and began to read.
In the highway below him teams went jogging into the village.
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