monster, a perfect monster, and probably with an affected brain. No
man can observe you as I have observed you and not know that it was a
matter of conscience with you, but I am afraid, my friend, that it is
one of the blunders of virtue." The judge had delivered his views with
his habitual oratory. The last three words he spoke with a particular
emphasis, as if the phrase was his discovery.

The doctor made a weary gesture. "He saved my boy's life."

"Yes," said the judge, swiftly--"yes, I know!"

"And what am I to do?" said Trescott, his eyes suddenly lighting like
an outburst from smouldering peat. "What am I to do? He gave himself
for--for Jimmie. What am I to do for him?"

The judge abased himself completely before these words. He lowered his
eyes for a moment. He picked at his cucumbers.

Presently he braced himself straightly in his chair. "He will be your
creation, you understand. He is purely your creation. Nature has very
evidently given him up. He is dead. You are restoring him to life. You
are making him, and he will be a monster, and with no mind.

"He will be what you like, judge," cried Trescott, in sudden, polite
fury. "He will be anything, but, by God! he saved my boy."

The judge interrupted in a voice trembling with emotion: "Trescott!
Trescott! Don't I know?"

Trescott had subsided to a sullen mood. "Yes, you know," he answered,
acidly; "but you don't know all about your own boy being saved from
death." This was a perfectly childish allusion to the judge's
bachelorhood. Trescott knew that the remark was infantile, but he
seemed to take desperate delight in it.

But it passed the judge completely. It was not his spot.

"I am puzzled," said he, in profound thought. "I don't know what to
say."

Trescott had become repentant. "Don't think I don't appreciate what
you say, judge. But--"

"Of course!" responded the judge, quickly. "Of course."

"It--" began Trescott.

"Of course," said the judge.

In silence they resumed their dinner.

"Well," said the judge, ultimately, "it is hard for a man to know what
to do."

"It is," said the doctor, fervidly.

There was another silence. It was broken by the judge:

"Look here, Trescott; I don't want you to think--"

"No, certainly not," answered the doctor, earnestly.

"Well, I don't want you to think I would say anything to--It
was only that I thought that I might be able to suggest to you
that--perhaps--the affair was a little dubious."