gum 'Intelligencer', which he was instinctively
characterizing with the spirit of the new journalism, and was pushing as
hardily forward on the lines of personality as if he had dropped down
to it from the height of a New York or Chicago Sunday edition. The judge
said, with something less than his habitual honesty, that he did not
mind his being a reporter, but he minded his being light and shallow;
he minded his being flippant and mocking; he minded his bringing his
cigarettes and banjo into the house at his second visit. He did not mind
his push; the fellow had his way to make and he had to push; but he did
mind his being all push; and his having come out of the country with as
little simplicity as if he had passed his whole life in the city. He
had no modesty, and he had no reverence; he had no reverence for Ellen
herself, and the poor girl seemed to like him for that.

He was all the more offensive to the judge because he was himself to
blame for their acquaintance, which began when one day the fellow
had called after him in the street, and then followed down the shady
sidewalk beside him to his hour, wanting to know what this was he had
heard about his history, and pleading for more light upon his plan in
it. At the gate he made a flourish of opening and shutting it for the
judge, and walking up the path to his door he kept his hand on the
judge's shoulder most offensively; but in spite of this Kenton had
the weakness to ask him in, and to call Ellen to get him the most
illustrative documents of the history.

The interview that resulted in the 'Intelligencer' was the least evil
that came of this error. Kenton was amazed, and then consoled, and then
afflicted that Ellen was not disgusted with it; and in his conferences
with his wife he fumed and fretted at his own culpable folly, and tried
to get back of the time he had committed it, in that illusion which
people have with trouble that it could somehow be got rid of if it could
fairly be got back of; till the time came when his wife could no longer
share his unrest in this futile endeavor.

She said, one night when they had talked late and long, "That can't be
helped now; and the question is what are we going to do to stop it."

The judge evaded the point in saying, "The devil of it is that all the
nice fellows are afraid of her; they respect her too much, and the very
thing which ought to disgust her with this chap is what gives him his
power over her. I don't k