and that the neglect of
their fellow servants was one of those ordinary risks. And as for the
boy ten years old being employed in the mines contrary to law, there
were some details of a trip to Austria for that boy and his parents,
that had to be arranged with the steamship company by wire that very
morning. The Judge sat reading the law, oblivious--judicially--to what
was going on, and Joseph Calvin fell to work with a will. But what the
young Judge, who could ignore Mr. Calvin's activities, could not help
taking judicial notice of in spite of his law books, were those eyes out
there on the street. They were indeed beautiful eyes and they said so
much, and yet left much to the imagination--and the imagination of Judge
Van Dorn was exceedingly nimble in those little matters, and in many
other matters besides. Indeed, so nimble was his imagination that if it
hadn't been for the fact that at Judge Van Dorn's own extra-judicial
suggestion, every lawyer in town, excepting Henry Fenn, who had retired
from the law practice, had been retained by the Company an hour after
the accident, no one knows how many holes might have been found in Mr.
Joseph Calvin's unaided brief.

As the young Judge sat poring over his law book, Captain Morton came in
and after the Captain's usual circumlocution he said:

"What I really wanted to know, Judge, was about a charter. I want to
start a company. So I says to myself, Judge Tom, he can just about start
me right. He'll get my company going--what say?" Answering the Judge's
question about the nature of the company, the Captain explained: "You
see, I had the agency for the Waverly bicycle here a while back, and I
got one of their wheels and was fooling with it like a fellow will on a
wet day--what say?" He smiled up at the Judge a self-deprecatory smile,
as if to ask him not to mind his foolishness but to listen to his story.
"And when I got the blame thing apart, she wouldn't go together--eh? So
I had to kind of give up the agency, and I took a churn that was filling
a long-felt want just then. Churns is always my specialty and I forgot
all about the bicycle--just like a fellow will--eh? But here a while
back I wanted to rig up a gearing for the churn and so I took down the
wreck of the old wheel, and dubbing around I worked out a ball-bearing
sprocket joint--say, man, she runs just like a feather. And now what I
want is a patent for the sprocket and a charter for the company to put
it on the m