est in a tax notice, which was pasted on a blackboard just
outside the office door, there entered the presence of the Judge a man
who seemingly was but a few years younger than the Judge himself--a man
who looked to be somewhere between sixty-five and seventy. There is a
look that you may have seen in the eyes of ownerless but
well-intentioned dogs--dogs that, expecting kicks as their daily
portion, are humbly grateful for kind words and stray bones; dogs that
are fairly yearning to be adopted by somebody--by anybody--being
prepared to give to such a benefactor a most faithful doglike devotion
in return.

This look, which is fairly common among masterless and homeless dogs, is
rare among humans; still, once in a while you do find it there too. The
man who now timidly shuffled himself across the threshold of Judge
Priest's office had such a look out of his eyes. He had a long simple
face, partly inclosed in gray whiskers. Four dollars would have been a
sufficient price to pay for the garments he stood in, including the
wrecked hat he held in his hands and the broken, misshaped shoes on his
feet. A purchaser who gave more than four dollars for the whole in its
present state of decrepitude would have been but a poor hand at
bargaining.

The man who wore this outfit coughed in an embarrassed fashion and
halted, fumbling his ruinous hat in his hands.

"Howdy do?" said Judge Priest heartily. "Come in!"

The other diffidently advanced himself a yard or two.

"Excuse me, suh," he said apologetically; "but this here Breck Quarles
he come after me and he said ez how you wanted to see me. 'Twas him ez
brung me here, suh."

Faintly underlying the drawl of the speaker was just a suspicion--a mere
trace, as you might say--of a labial softness that belongs solely and
exclusively to the children, and in a diminishing degree to the
grandchildren, of native-born sons and daughters of a certain small
green isle in the sea. It was not so much a suggestion of a brogue as it
was the suggestion of the ghost of a brogue; a brogue almost
extinguished, almost obliterated, and yet persisting through the
generations--South of Ireland struggling beneath south of Mason and
Dixon's Line.

"Yes," said the Judge; "that's right. I do want to see you." The tone
was one that he might employ in addressing a bashful child. "Set down
there and make yourself at home."

The newcomer obeyed to the extent of perching himself on the extreme
forward edg