udge, as he looked over the
morning paper, would sometimes leap to his feet with a perfect howl of
suffering, and cry: "Everlasting Moses! the Liberals have carried East
Elgin." Or else he would lean back from the breakfast table with
the most good-humoured laugh you ever heard and say: "Ha! ha! the
Conservatives have carried South Norfolk."

And yet he was perfectly logical, when you come to think of it. After
all, what is more annoying to a sensitive, highly-strung man than an
infernal sprinkler playing all over the place, and what more agreeable
to a good-natured, even-tempered fellow than a well-prepared supper? Or,
what is more likeable than one's good, old, affectionate dog bounding
down the path from sheer delight at seeing you,--or more execrable than
an infernal whelp that has torn up the geraniums and is too old to keep,
anyway?

As for politics, well, it all seemed reasonable enough. When the
Conservatives got in anywhere, Pepperleigh laughed and enjoyed it,
simply because it does one good to see a straight, fine, honest fight
where the best man wins. When a Liberal got in, it made him mad, and he
said so,--not, mind you, from any political bias, for his office forbid
it,--but simply because one can't bear to see the country go absolutely
to the devil.

I suppose, too, it was partly the effect of sitting in court all day
listening to cases. One gets what you might call the judicial temper of
mind. Pepperleigh had it so strongly developed that I've seen him kick
a hydrangea pot to pieces with his foot because the accursed thing
wouldn't flower. He once threw the canary cage clear into the lilac
bushes because the "blasted bird wouldn't stop singing." It was a
straight case of judicial temper. Lots of judges have it, developed in
just the same broad, all-round way as with Judge Pepperleigh.

I think it must be passing sentences that does it. Anyway, Pepperleigh
had the aptitude for passing sentences so highly perfected that he spent
his whole time at it inside of court and out. I've heard him hand out
sentences for the Sultan of Turkey and Mrs. Pankhurst and the Emperor of
Germany that made one's blood run cold. He would sit there on the piazza
of a summer evening reading the paper, with dynamite sparks flying from
his spectacles as he sentenced the Czar of Russia to ten years in the
salt mines--and made it fifteen a few minutes afterwards. Pepperleigh
always read the foreign news--the news of things that