sayin' when this
unnecessary interruption occurred, I realized right from the moment
when I opened the door and saw him standing there in front of me,
grinning, and his chin cut wide open, that there was something wrong.
I am a discerning man--and I knew! And it didn't take me long to
convince him--not very long!--that there were other communities which
would find him more welcome than this one. Maybe I was harsh--maybe I
was--but harsh cases require harsh remedies. And because he didn't
have the money, I offered to let him have enough to carry him out of
town, and something to keep him about as long as he'll last now, I'm
thinking, although that place of his isn't worth as much as the paper
to write the mortgage on.

"I knew it had come at last--but, at that, I didn't get anything that
I wanted to call real proof until after we'd drawn up the papers and
signed 'em, and were about ready to start back. Then, when we were
coming down the steps of the clerk's office, I got all the proof I
wanted, and a little more than that. He--he stumbled just about then,
and would have gone down on his face if I hadn't held him up. And he
was laughing out loud to himself, chuckling, with one fist full of
money fit to draw a crowd. And he pulled away from me just when I was
trying to force him into the buggy--pulled away and sort of leered up
at me, waving that handful of bills right under my nose.

"'Oh, come now, Judge,' he sort of hiccoughed, 'this ain't the way for
two old friends to part. This ain't the way for me to treat an old
friend who's given me this. I want to buy you something--I want to buy
you at least one drink--before I go. Come on, now, Judge. What'll you
have?' says he."

They had all forgotten Old Jerry's interruption; they had forgotten
everything else but the Judge's recital, that was climbing to its
climax. That room was very quiet when the speaker paused and waited
for his words to sink in--very quiet until a half-smothered giggle
broke the stillness.

There was an unholy glee in that mirth--a mocking, lilting note of
actual joy which rang almost profane at such a moment. Man for man it
brought that circle erect in the chairs; man for man they sat and
stared at the grotesque figure which was rocking now in a paroxysm of
laughter too real for simulation. In a breathless hush they turned
from the offender back to the judge, waiting, appalled, for the storm
to break.

Judge Maynard's round moon-face went purp