gal ability of James.

"He isn't any great lawyer, but he never gives it away. He knows how to
wear an air of profound learning with a large and impressive silence.
Roll up the whole Supreme Court into one and it can't look any wiser
than James K. Farnum."

Miller laughed. "Reminds me of what I heard last week. Jeff was walking
down Powers Avenue with James and an old fellow stopped me to point them
out. There go the best citizen and the worst citizen in this town, he
said. I told him that was rather hard on James. You ought to have heard
him. For him James is the hero of the piece and Jeff the villain."

"Half the people in this town have got that damn fool notion," Captain
Chunn interrupted violently.

"More than half, I should say."

"Every day or two I hear about how dissipated Jeff used to be and how
if it were not for his good and noble cousin he would have gone to the
deuce long ago," Rawson contributed.

Chunn pounded on the table with his fist. "Jeff's own fault. Talk about
durn fools! That boy's got them all beat clear off the map. And I'm
dashed if I don't like him better for it."

"Move we change the subject," suggested Rawson. "Here comes Verden's
worst citizen."

With a casual nod of greeting round the table Jeff sat down.

"Any of you hear James' speech before the Chamber of Commerce yesterday?
It was bully. One of his best," he said as he reached for the menu card.

Captain Chunn groaned. The rest laughed. Jeff looked round in surprise.
"What's the joke?"

Part 2

It was a great relief to James, in these days when the complacency of
his self-satisfaction was a little ruffled, to call often on Valencia
Van Tyle and let himself drift pleasantly with her along primrose paths
where moral obligations never obtruded. Under the near-Venetian ceiling
of her den, with its pink Cupids and plump dimpled cherubs smiling down,
he was never troubled about his relation to Hardy's defeat. Here he
got at life from another slant and could always find justification to
himself for his course.

She had a silent divination of his moods and knew how to minister
indolently to them. The subtle incense of luxury that she diffused
banished responsibility. In her soft sensuous blood the lusty beat of
duty had small play.

But even while he yielded to the allure of Valencia Van Tyle, admitting
a finish of beauty to which mere youth could not aspire, all that was
idealistic in him went out to the younger cousin wh