in; and he then became rather a pathetic figure, wandering absently around amidst the symbols of his past activity, and stroking the plows, like dumb companions. Or he would stand at the door and look across at the old courthouse, where he had seen many a slave sold and had listened to the great Kentucky orators. Once, too, while he was deep in conversation, a brisk young farmer drove up to the door in a sulky and called in pretty sharply that he wanted him to go out and set up a machine. The colonel's mind just then was busy with certain scenes of great power in his own past life, and had swelled to the old heroic proportions; wherefore, burning over the indignity, he seized an ax handle and started out in a manner that led the young man to drive quickly away.
But what hurt him most was the talk of the newer farming and the abuse of the old which he was forced to hear; and he generally refused to handle the improved implements and mechanical devices by which labor and waste were to be saved.
Altogether he grew tired of "the thing," and sold out at the end of the year with a loss of over a thousand dollars, though he insisted he had done a good business.
As he was then seen much on the streets again and several times heard to make remarks in regard to the sidewalks, gutters, and crossings, when they happened to be in bad condition, the Daily Press one morning published a card stating that if Colonel Romulus Fields would consent to make the race for mayor he would receive the support of many Democrats, adding a tribute to his virtues and his influential past. It touched the colonel, and he walked down town with a rather commanding figure. But it pained him to see how many of his acquaintances returned his salutations very coldly; and just as he was passing the Northern Bank he met the young opposition candidate,—a little red-haired fellow, walking between two ladies, with a rosebud in his buttonhole,—who refused to
