Chapter 26 - Page 2

interest mounted to excitement. He rubbed his head and grew flushed and bright of eye.

"By Jupiter, Tom!" he exclaimed, "I believe I can be of some use to you--I swear I believe I can. I haven't had much experience, but I've seen something of this claim business, and if I set my wits to work I can find out from other fellows who know more. I'll--" After a moment's reflection. "I'll have a talk with Farquhar to-morrow. That's what I'll do. Great Scott!" in a beaming outburst, "if I could push it through for you, how pleased Jenny would be."

When he went away Tom accompanied him downstairs. Sheba and Rupert followed them, and all three found themselves lured out into the moonlit night to saunter with him a few yards down the light avenue, talking still about their fairy story. The Judge himself was as fascinated by it as if he had been a child.

"Why, it's such a good story to tell," he expatiated; "and there must be a great deal in that. I never heard a better story for gaining sympathy--that fine old Southern aristocrat standing by the Union in a red-hot secessionist town--actually persecuted on account of it. He was persecuted, wasn't he?" he enquired of Rupert.

"Well," Rupert answered, "everybody was furious at him, of course--all his friends. People who had known him all his life passed him in the street without speaking. He'd been very popular, and he felt it terribly. He never was the same man after it began. He was old, and his spirit gave way."

"Just so!" exclaimed the Judge, stopping upon the pavement, elated even to oratory by the picture presented. "Fine old Southern aristocrat--on the brink of magnificent fortune--property turned into money that he may realise it--war breaks out, ruins him--Spartan patriotism--one patriot in a town of rebels hated and condemned by everybody--but faithful to his country. Friends--old friends--refuse to recognise him. Fortune gone--friends lost--heart broken." He snatched Tom's big hand and shook it enthusiastically. "Tom!" he said; "I'd like to make a speech to the House about it myself. I believe they would listen to me. How set up Jenny would be--how set up she'd be."

He left them all in a glow of enthusiasm; they could see him gesticulating a little to himself as he walked down the avenue in the moonlight.

"That's just like him," said Tom; "he'd rather please Jenny than set the House of Representatives on fire. And he'd undertake the whole thing--work to give a man a fortune for mere neighbourliness. We were a neighbourly lot in Hamlin, after all."

The Judge went home to his boarding-house and sat late in his shabby armchair, his legs stretched out, his hands clasped on the top of his rough head. He was thinking the thing out, and as he thought it out his excitement grew. Sometimes