ase note of the keys, then a treble, and they vibrated in
the heated air of the big hall. Had he hit the little C of the top
octave, the tinkle of that also might have been heard.

"Gentlemen and ladies, we have to begin somewheres. What am I bid?"

A menacing murmur gave place to the accusing silence. Some there were who
gazed at the Rothfield with longing eyes, but who had no intention of
committing social suicide. Suddenly a voice, the rasp of which penetrated
to St. Charles Street, came out with a bid. The owner was a seedy man
with a straw-colored, drunkard's mustache. He was leaning against the
body of Mrs. Russell's barouche (seized for sale), and those about him
shrank away as from smallpox. His hundred-dollar offer was followed by a
hiss. What followed next Stephen will always remember. When Judge Whipple
drew himself up to his full six feet, that was a warning to those that
knew him. As he doubled the bid, the words came out with the aggressive
distinctness of a man who through a long life has been used to
opposition. He with the gnawed yellow mustache pushed himself clear of
the barouche, his smouldering cigar butt dropping to the floor. But there
were no hisses now.

And this is how Judge Whipple braved public opinion once more. As he
stood there, defiant, many were the conjectures as to what he could wish
to do with the piano of his old friend. Those who knew the Judge (and
there were few who did not) pictured to themselves the dingy little
apartment where he lived, and smiled. Whatever his detractors might have
said of him, no one was ever heard to avow that he had bought or sold
anything for gain.

A tremor ran through the people. Could it have been of admiration for the
fine old man who towered there glaring defiance at those about him? "Give
me a strong and consistent enemy," some great personage has said, "rather
than a lukewarm friend." Three score and five years the Judge had lived,
and now some were beginning to suspect that he had a heart. Verily he had
guarded his secret well. But it was let out to many more that day, and
they went home praising him who had once pronounced his name with
bitterness.

This is what happened. Before he of the yellow mustache could pick up his
cigar from the floor and make another bid, the Judge had cried out a sum
which was the total of Colonel Carvel's assessment. Many recall to this
day how fiercely he frowned when the applause broke forth of itself; and
when h