Calvin, of the renewed and reunited firm of Van Dorn & Calvin,
were not without their painful moments. As, for instance, when the
editor of the _Times_ complained bitterly at having it agreed that
he would have to mention in the article the Judge's "beautiful wife,"
specifically and in terms, the editor was for raising the price to $150,
by reason of the laughing stock it would make of the paper, but
compromised upon the promise of legal notices from the firm amounting to
$100 within the following six months. Also there was a hitch in the
negotiations hereinbefore mentioned when the _Times_ was required
to refer to the National Bar Association meeting at all. For it was
notorious that the Judge's flourishing signature with "and wife" had
been photographed upon the register of a New York Hotel when he attended
that meeting, whereas every one knew that Mrs. Van Dorn was in Europe
that summer, and the photograph of the Judge's beautifully flourishing
signature aforesaid was one of the things that persuaded the Judge to
enter the active practice and leave the shades and solitudes of the
bench for more strenuous affairs. To allude to the Judge's wife, and to
mention the National Bar Association in the same article, struck the
editor of the _Times_ as so inauspicious that it required
considerable persuasion on the part of the diplomatic Mr. Calvin, to
arrange the matter.

So the Judge's Heaven bellied on its canvas, full of vain east wind, and
fooled no one--not even the Judge, least of all his beautiful wife, who,
knowing of the Bar Association incident, laughed a ribald laugh.
Moreover, having abandoned mental healing for the Episcopalian faith and
having killed her mental healing dog with caramels and finding surcease
in a white poodle, she gave herself over to a riot of earth
thoughts--together with language thereunto appertaining of so plain a
texture that the Judge all but limped in his strut for several hours.

But when the strut did come back, and the mocking echoes of the strident
tones of "his beautiful wife" were stilled by several rounds of Scotch
whisky at the Club, the Judge went forth into the town, waving his hands
right and left, bowing punctiliously to women, and spending an hour in
police court getting out of trouble some of his gambler friends who had
supported him in politics.

He told every one that it was good to be off the bench and to be "plain
Tom Van Dorn" again, and he shook hands up and down Ma