Having a judge to
impose upon he began by introducing himself as the favorite nephew of
Chief Justice Bassio Bates.

"Being in town," he would say, when the Judge was mellowed by the
thought that a nephew of Bassio Bates was before him, "I remembered
that you were located here. My uncle has often spoken to me of your
admirable decision in the Higgins-Hoopmeyer calf case."

The Higgins-Hoopmeyer case is mentioned in "Who's Who." The Judge
can't help being pleased to learn that Chief Justice Bassio Bates
approved of his decision in the Higgins-Hoopmeyer case.

"My uncle has often regretted that you have never met," says the Bald
Impostor. "If he had known I was to be in Riverbank he would have sent
his copy of your work, 'Liens and Torts,' to be autographed."

"Liens and Torts" is the one volume written by Judge Orley Morvis
mentioned in "Who's Who." The Judge becomes mellower than ever.

"Ah, yes!" says the Judge, tickled, "and how is your uncle, may I
ask?"

"In excellent health considering his age. You know he is
ninety-seven," says the Bald Impostor, having got the "_b._ June 23,
1817" from "Who's Who." "But his toe still bothers him. A man of his
age, you know. Such things heal slowly."

"No! I didn't hear of that," says the Judge, intensely interested. He
is going to get some intimate details.

"Oh, it was quite dreadful!" says the Bald Impostor. "He dropped a
volume of Coke on Littleton on it last March--no, it was April,
because it was April he spent at my mother's."

All this is pure invention, and that is where the Bald Impostor leads
all others. Even as he invents details of the sore toe, you see, he
introduces his mother.

"She was taken sick early in April," he says, and presently he has Dr.
Somebody-Big out of "Who's Who" attending to the Chief Justice's sore
toe and advising the mother to try the Denver climate. And the next
thing the Judge knows the Bald Impostor is telling that he is now on
his way back from Denver to Chicago.

So then it comes out. The Bald Impostor sits on the edge of his chair
and becomes nervous and perspires. Perspiring is a sure sign a man is
unaccustomed to asking a loan, and the Bald Impostor is entitled to
start the first School of Free Perspiring in America. He can perspire
in December, when the furnace is out and the windows are open. All his
head pores have self-sprinklers or something of the sort. He is as
free with beads of perspiration as the early Indian tra