4 a.m.
If the pro-scheme party had had the wit to invent a pretext for allowing the Town Clerk to remain in the old municipal buildings , the scheme would instantly have taken life . The Town Clerk , being widowed , had consoled himself with a young second wife . This girl adored dancing ; the Town Clerk adored her ; and therefore where she danced he deemed it prudent to attend . Driving home from a January ball at 4 a.m. the Town Clerk had caught pneumonia . In a week he was dead , and his dynasty with him . In a couple of months the pro-scheme party had carried the council off its feet . Such are the realities , never printed in newspapers , of municipal politics in the grim north .