flared up the boy
glanced about him.

The interior was mean enough, with its rough walls, dirt floor and
black, cavernous fireplace. A rude clapboard table did duty as a desk,
a fact made plain by a horn ink-well, a notary's seal, and a rack with a
half-dozen quill pens. Above the desk was a shelf of books in worn calf
bindings, and before it a rickety chair. A shakedown bed in one corner
of the room was tastefully screened from the public gaze by a tattered
quilt.

"Boy, don't be afraid. Look on me as a friend," urged the judge, who
towered above him in the dim candle-light. "Here's comfort without
ostentation. Don't tell me you prefer the tavern, with its corrupt
associations!" Hannibal was silent, and the judge, after a brief moment
of irresolution, threw open the door. Then he bent toward the small
stranger, bringing his face close to the child's, while his thick lips
wreathed themselves in a smile ingratiatingly genial. "You can't look
me squarely in the eye and say you prefer the tavern to these scholarly
surroundings?" he said banteringly.

"I reckon I'll be glad to stop," answered Hannibal. The judge clapped
him playfully on the back.

"Such confidence is inspiring! Make yourself perfectly at home. Are you
hungry?"

"Yes, sir. I ain't had much to eat to-day," replied Hannibal cautiously.

"I can offer you food then. What do you say to cold fish?" the judge
smacked his lips to impart a relish to the idea. "I dare swear I can
find you some corn bread into the bargain. Tea I haven't got. On the
advice of my physician, I don't use it. What do you say--shall we light
a fire and warm the fish?"

"I 'low I could eat it cold."

"No trouble in the world to start a fire. All we got to do is to go out,
and pull a few palings off the fence," urged the judge.

"It will do all right just like it is," said Hannibal.

"Very good, then!" cried the judge gaily, and he began to assemble
the dainties he had enumerated. "Here you are!" he cleared his throat
impressively, while benignity shone from every feature of his face. "A
moment since you allowed me to think that you were solvent to the
extent of fifty cents--" Hannibal looked puzzled. The judge dealt him a
friendly blow on the back, then stood off and regarded him with a glance
of great jocularity, his plump knuckles on his hips and his arms akimbo.
"I wonder"--and his eyes assumed a speculative squint "I wonder if you
could be induced to make a temporary loan of