it in the interests of
the property owners in the town and in the Valley. Incidentally he had
come to warn George on behalf of Market Street that he was harboring
Grant Adams, contrary to the judgment of Market Street. But George
Brotherton's heart was far from Market Street; it was out on the hill
with Emma, his wife, and his mouth spoke from the place of his treasure.

"Tom--tell me, as between man and man, what do you think of children?
You're sort of in the outer room of the Blue Lodge of grandfatherdom,
with Lila and Kenyon getting ready for the preacher, and you ought to
know, Tom--honest, man, how about it?"

A wave of self-pity enveloped the Judge. His voice broke as he answered:
"George, I haven't any little girl--she never even has spoken to me
about this affair that the whole town knows about. Oh, I haven't any
child at all."

He looked a miserable moment at Brotherton, perhaps reviewing the years
which they had lived and grown from youth to middle age together and
growled: "Not a thing--not a damned thing in it--George, in all this
forty years of fighting to keep ahead of the undertaker! Not a God
damned thing!" And so he left the Sweet Serenity of Books and Wall Paper
and went back to the treadmill of life, spitting ashes from his gray
lips!

And then Daniel Sands toddled in to get the five-cent cigars which he
had bought for a generation--one at a time every day, and Brotherton
came to Daniel with his problem.

The old man, whose palsied head forever was denying something, as if he
had the assessor always in his mind, shut his rheumy eyes and answered:
"My children--bauch--" He all but spat upon their names. "Morty--moons
around reading Socialist books, with a cold in his throat and dishwater
in his brains. And the other, she's married a dirty traitor and stands
by him against her own flesh and blood. Ba-a-a-ch!" He showed his blue,
old mouth, and cried:

"I married four women to give those children a home--and what thanks do
I get? Ingrates--one a milk-sop--God, if he'd only be a Socialist and
get out and throw dynamite; but he won't; he won't do a thing but sit
around drooling about social justice when I want to eat my meals in
peace. And he goes coughing all day and night, and grunting, and now
he's wearing a pointed beard--he says it's for his throat, but I
know--it's because he thinks it's romantic. And that Anne--why, she's
worse," but he did not finish the sentence. His old head wagged
viol