le. Twice he tried to speak
before he sat silent, annihilation in his eyes, until Jerry's outbreak
had subsided. Then he lifted one forefinger and pointed, with all the
majesty such a gesture could ever convey, to the empty chair--the
chair which Old Jerry should have been occupying in becoming silence
at that moment.

"Have you gone crazy?" he thundered. "Have you--or are you just
naturally witless? Or was there something you wanted to say? If there
isn't--if you've no questions to ask--you get over to that chair and
sit down where you belong!"

It was then that the rest of the circle realized that something had
gone wrong--most mightily wrong! According to all precedent, the
little, white-haired man should have shrunk back and cowered beneath
that verbal lash, and obeyed without a glance. They all realized that
there was imminent a climax unforeseen by all--all but the Judge; and
he was too blind with rage to see.

Very meekly Old Jerry bore his thundered rebuke--too meekly. But after
the judge had finished he failed to move; he merely stood there,
facing the town's great man. And in his attitude there was something
of infantile, derisive, sparrowlike impudence as he peered back into
the Judge's face--something that was very like the attitude of an
outraged, ruffled old reprobate of a parrot rearing himself erect.

Old Jerry made no haste. It was a thing which required a nice
deliberation. And so he waited--waited and prolonged the moment to its
last, sweetest second. Once more he chuckled, to himself this
time--just once, before he began to speak. That old Tavern office had
never been so deathly still before.

"A question?" he echoed at last, thoughtfully. "A question? Well,
Jedge, there was one thing I was a-goin' to ask you. Jest one triflin'
thing I was kinda curious to know. Why, I was a-goin' to ask you, back
a spell--What did you hev? It kinda interested me, wonderin' about it.
But now--now that I've heard your story in full, I reckon I'll hev to
change that question a mite. I reckon they ain't nothin' left but to
ask you--How many did you hev? How many, Jedge? For, Jedge, you're
talkin' most mighty wild tonight!"

And that silence endured--endured even after the huge man had
half-risen, purple features gone white, and then dropped heavily back
into his chair before that rigid figure in its sodden garments which
had turned from him toward the rest of the circle of regulars.

Old Jerry made his formal e