LE

The trouble with many narratives is that they tell too much. Stephen's
interview with his mother was a quiet affair, and not historic. Miss
Crane's boarding-house is not an interesting place, and the tempest in
that teapot is better imagined than described. Out of consideration for
Mr. Stephen Brice, we shall skip likewise a most affecting scene at Mr.
Canter's second-hand furniture store.

That afternoon Stephen came again to the dirty flight of steps which
led to Judge Whipple's office. He paused a moment to gather courage, and
then, gripping the rail, he ascended. The ascent required courage now,
certainly. He halted again before the door at the top. But even as he
stood there came to him, in low, rich tones, the notes of a German song.
He entered And Mr. Richter rose in shirt-sleeves from his desk to greet
him, all smiling.

"Ach, my friend!" said he, "but you are late. The Judge has been
awaiting you."

"Has he?" inquired Stephen, with ill-concealed anxiety.

The big young German patted him on the shoulder.

Suddenly a voice roared from out the open transom of the private office,
like a cyclone through a gap.

"Mr. Richter!"

"Sir!"

"Who is that?"

"Mr. Brice, sir."

"Then why in thunder doesn't he come in?"

Mr. Richter opened the private door, and in Stephen walked. The door
closed again, and there he was in the dragon's dens face to face with
the dragon, who was staring him through and through. The first objects
that caught Stephen's attention were the grizzly gray eye brows, which
seemed as so much brush to mark the fire of the deep-set battery of the
eyes. And that battery, when in action, must have been truly terrible.

The Judge was shaven, save for a shaggy fringe of gray beard around his
chin, and the size of his nose was apparent even in the full face.

Stephen felt that no part of him escaped the search of Mr. Whipple's
glance. But it was no code or course of conduct that kept him silent.
Nor was it fear entirely.

"So you are Appleton Brice's son," said the Judge, at last. His tone was
not quite so gruff as it might have been.

"Yes, sir," said Stephen.

"Humph!" said the Judge, with a look that scarcely expressed approval.
"I guess you've been patted on the back too much by your father's
friends." He leaned back in his wooden chair. "How I used to detest
people who patted boys on the back and said with a smirk, 'I know your
father.' I never had a father whom people could say