in the flush of his youth, something--perhaps it
was time, perhaps the burden of the years--seemed to be sapping him,
seemed to be drying him out, fruitless, pod-laden, dry and listless,
with a bleached soul, naked to the winds that blow across the world. The
myriad criss-crosses of minute red veins that marked his cheek often
were wet with water from the eyes that used to glow out of a very
volcano of a personality behind them. But after many hours of charging
up and down the earth in his great noisy motor, red rims began to form
about the watery eyes and they peered furtively and savagely at the
world, like wolves from a falling temple.

As he stood by the fire in Mr. Brotherton's sanctuary, holding his
_Harper's Weekly_ in his hand, and glancing idly over the new books
carelessly arranged on the level of the eye upon the wide oak mantel,
the Judge came to be conscious of the presence of Amos Adams on a settee
near by.

"How do you do, sir?" The habit of speaking to every one persisted, but
the suave manner was affected, and the voice was mechanical. The old man
looked up from his book--one of Professor Hyslop's volumes, and
answered, "Why, hello, Tom--how are you?" and ducked back to his
browsing.

"That son of yours doesn't seem to have set the Wahoo afire with his
unions in the last two or three years, does he?" said Van Dorn. He could
not resist taking this poke at the old man, who replied without looking
up:

"Probably not."

Then fearing that he might have been curt the old man lifted his eyes
from his book and looking kindly over his glasses continued: "The Wahoo
isn't ablaze, Tom, but you know as well as I that the wage scale has
been raised twice in the mines, and once in the glass factory and once
in the smelter in the past three years without strikes--and that's what
Grant is trying to do. More than that, every concern in the Valley now
recognizes the union in conferring with the men about work conditions.
That's something--that's worth all his time for three years or so, if he
had done nothing else."

"Well, what else has he done?" asked Van Dorn quickly.

"Well, Tom, for one thing the men are getting class conscious, and in a
strike that will be a strong cement to make them stick."

Van Dorn's neck reddened, as he replied: "Yes--the damn
anarchists--class consciousness is what undermines patriotism."

"And patriotism," replied the old man, thumbing the lapel of his coat
that held his loyal leg