The agent had not dared to attend the meeting, but he had had his spies there, who reported to him fully the authorship and drift of all the speeches in the hall, and the unseemly proceedings of the street.

Mr.Belcher did not laugh, for his vanity was wounded.

The thought that a town in which he had ruled so long had dared to burn his effigy in the open street was a humiliation; particularly so, as he did not see how he could revenge himself upon the perpetrators of it without compromising his own interests.

He blurted out his favorite expletive, lighted a new cigar, walked his room, and chafed like a caged tiger.
He was not in haste to break the other seals, but at last he sat down to the remainder of his task, and read a series of pitiful personal appeals that would have melted any heart but his own.

They were from needy men and women whom he had despoiled.