with all the latest improvements. Wa'n't we some jays to be took
in like we was by a little, white-faced chit like her? Couldn't see
through a grindstone with a hole in it! Bolton House.... And an
automobile to fetch the old jailbird home in. Wa'n't it love-ly?"

A low growl ran around the circle.

"Durn you, Lute! Don't you see the Jedge has something to say?"
demanded the man behind the bar.

Judge Fulsom slowly tapped his pipe on the arm of his chair. "If you
all will keep still a second and let me speak," he began.

"I want my rights," interrupted a man with a hoarse crow.

"Your rights!" shouted the Judge. "You've got no right to a damned
thing but a good horsewhipping!"

"I've got my rights to the money other folks are keeping, I'll let
you know!"

Then the Judge fairly bellowed, as he got slowly to his feet:

"I tell you once for all, the whole damned lot of you," he shouted,
"that every man, woman and child in Brookville has been paid,
compensated, remunerated and requited in full for every cent he, she
or it lost in the Andrew Bolton bank failure."

There was a snarl of dissent.

"You all better go slow, and hold your tongues, and mind your own
business. Remember what I say; that girl does not owe a red cent in
this town, neither does her father. She's paid in full, and you've
spent a lot of it in here, too!" The Judge wiped his red face.

"Oh, come on, Jedge; you don't want to be hard on the house,"
protested the man in the red sweater, waving his arms as frantically
as a freight brakeman. "Say, you boys! don't ye git excited! The
Jedge didn't mean that; you got him kind of het up with argufying....
Down in front, boys! You, Lute--"

But it was too late: half a dozen voices were shouting at once. There
was a simultaneous descent upon the bar, with loud demands for liquor
of the sort Lute Parsons filled up on. Then the raucous voice of the
ringleader pierced the tumult.

"Come on, boys! Let's go out to the old place and get our rights off
that gal of Bolton's!"

"That's th' stuff, Lute!" yelled the others, clashing their glasses
wildly. "Come on! Come on, everybody!"

In vain Judge Fulsom hammered on the bar and called for order in the
court room. The majesty of the law, as embodied in his great bulk,
appeared to have lost its power. Even his faithful henchman in the
red sweater had joined the rioters and was yelling wildly for his
rights. Somebody flung wide the door, and the barroom empti