and neither am I. We're both doing some thinking
before we talk."

"You're a quiet pair," J. K. remarked. "I shouldn't wonder if you'd nose
along quite a distance before you get through--I mean in our direction."

"That's what we're thinking about," I replied. Again he turned to me
curiously:

"You two can think together--without talking--can't you?"

"Yes--sometimes we can."

"I never got that far with Sue." All at once he came closer, his whole
manner changed: "Say, Bill--tell her all I've said--will you? I'm
sorry! Honest Injun! Make her feel how damnably sorry I am that I ever
let her in for this!"

When I left him I went off for a walk, for I wanted to be alone awhile.
I wondered just how sure Joe felt about his fast approaching trial. It
seemed to me that he had a good chance of going where Sue had pictured
him.

CHAPTER II

That evening I learned that my father was worse, and I spent the next
day by his bedside. He had had a stroke in the morning and was not
expected to live through the night.

I found him mumbling fast to himself and making slight, restless efforts
to move. At last he grew quiet, and presently his half-open gnarled
right hand came groping out over the covers. I took it in mine, and at
once I felt it close on mine with a quick, convulsive strength. His hand
was moist, his eyes saw nothing. I sat there thus for a long time. Then
suddenly,

"Good boy," he muttered thickly. "Good boy--good--always good to your
mother!" He kept repeating this over and over, with pauses between, then
again with an effort, fiercely, as though from a distance his mind were
set on getting this message over to me, over from an age that was dying
into an age that was coming to life, a last good-by to hold me back.

Soon he was only mumbling figures, names of ships and distant ports,
freight consignments. Now and then his finger would go to his lips, as
he turned phantom pages in feverish haste. Again, in gasping whispers,
he would break out into arguments for the protection of Yankee sails.

"Protection!" he would whisper. "Damn fools not to see it!
Discriminating tariffs! Subsidies! A Navy!... Don't forget the Navy!
Remember War of 1812!... Nothing without fighting!"

"Nothing without fighting." He had been learning this all his life--and
after he had said it now, he stopped speaking and grew still. Little by
little his movements grew weaker. Finally he lay like a log, and the
doctor said he would