upon his cruise,
which was a very short one, the Knowles establishment being but a few
hundred yards from the Minot place. On the way he inquired concerning
the judge's health. Mike shook his head.

"Bad," he grunted. "It's close _to_, the ould judge is."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Sure ye are. So are we all. He is a fine man, none better--barrin' he's
a grand ould curmudgeon. Here ye are, Cap'n. Git up till I lift ye
down."

Judge Knowles's house--Sears Kendrick had never been in it before--was a
big square mansion built in the '50's. There was the usual front door
leading to a dark front hall from which, to right and left respectively,
opened parlor and sitting rooms. Emmeline ushered the visitor into the
latter apartment. It was high studded, furnished in black walnut and
haircloth, a pair of tall walnut cases filled with books against one
wall, on the opposite wall a libellous oil portrait of the judge's wife,
who died twenty years before, and a pair of steel engravings depicting
"Sperm Whale Fishing in the Arctic"; No. 1, portraying "The Chase," No.
2, "the Capture." Beneath these stood a marble-topped table upon which
were neatly piled four gigantic volumes, bound copies of Harper's
Weekly, 1861 to '65, the Civil War period.

At the end of the room, where two French windows opened--that is, could
have opened, they never were--upon the narrow, iron-railed veranda, sat
Judge Marcus Aurelious Knowles, in an old-fashioned walnut armchair, his
feet upon a walnut and haircloth footstool--Bayport folk in those days
called such stools "crickets"--a knitted Afghan thrown over his legs and
a pillow beneath his head. And in that dark, shadowy room, its curtains
drawn rather low, so white was the judge's hair and his face that, to
Sears Kendrick, just in from the light out of doors, it was at first
hard to distinguish where the pillow left off and the head began.

But the head on the pillow stirred and the judge spoke.

"Ah--good afternoon, Kendrick," he said. "Glad to see you.... Humph.
Can't see much of you, can I? Here, Emmeline, put those shades up, will
you?"

The housekeeper moved toward the windows, but she protested as she
moved.

"Now, Judge," she said, "I don't believe you want them winder curtains
strung way up, do you? I hauled 'em down purpose so's the sun wouldn't
get in your eyes."

"Um--yes. Well, you haul 'em up again. And don't you haul 'em down till
I'm dead. You'll do it then, I know, and I don't wa