rough the letter-slit in the door.

"Come in!" yelled a snarling voice.

Bradley entered timidly, for the voice was not at all cordial. The
Judge, in his own den, was a different man from the Judge at Robie's
grocery, and this day he was in bad humor. He sat with his heels on a
revolving book-case, a law-book spread out on his legs, a long pipe in
his hand.

If he uttered any words of greeting they were lost in the crescendo
growl of a fat bull-dog lying in supple shining length at his feet.

"Down with yeh!" he snarled at the dog, who ceased his growling, but
ran lightly and with ferocious suggestiveness toward Bradley and clung
sniffing about his heels.

"Si' down!" the Judge said, indicating a chair with his pipe, which he
held by the bowl. He made no other motion.

Bradley sat down. This greeting drove him back into his usual stubborn
silence. He waited for developments, his eyes on the dog.

"Well, young man, what can I do for you?" asked the lawyer after a long
silence, during which he laid down one book, and read a page in
another.

"Nothin', I guess."

"Well, what the devil did yeh come in here for?" he inquired, with a
glare of astonishment. "Want 'o buy a dog?"

Bradley was mad. "I came because Radbourn sent me. I c'n git out agin,
mighty quick."

The Judge took down his heels. "Oh, you're that young orator. Why
didn't yeh say so, you damned young Indian?" He now rose and walked
over to the spittoon before going on. Bradley knew that this rough tone
was entirely different from the first. It was a sort of affectionate
blackguardism. "I heard you speak last Friday. All you need, young man,
is a chance to swing y'r elbows. You want room according to y'r
strength, but you never'd find it in the Republican party. It's struck
with the palsy."

The judge had been talking this for two presidential campaigns and
didn't take himself at all seriously.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know, yet."

"Do you want 'o study law?"

"I don't know, sir. Do you think I can be a lawyer?"

"If you're not too damned honest. If you want 'o try it, I'll make an
arrangement with you, that will be better than sawing wood anyhow, this
winter, and you can keep right on with your studies. We'll see what can
be done next year."

The old man had taken a liking to Bradley on account of his oratory,
and the possibilities of making him a Democratic leader had really
taken possession of him. He had no son of his own