shade, but in his eagerness that morning he forgot
to don for Denny the air of gracious understanding that was half
paternal, half deprecating, which he always wore to set the others
more at their ease. He even forgot to clear his throat judicially when
he asked the boy before him if he had considered sufficiently the
gravity of such a step as the placing in pawn of the roof that
sheltered him and the ground that gave him food. It may have been
because Young Denny, as he stood quietly waiting for his answer, came
under neither classification--he was neither pitifully timid nor more
pitifully bold--that the Judge omitted the usual pompous formula, or
merely that in his eager contemplation of the boy's hurt face he
forgot for once his perfectly rehearsed part.

No preoccupation, however, marred the businesslike statement of his
terms, but even while he named the amount which he was willing to risk
upon Young Denny's arid, rocky acres, and the rate of interest which
he felt compelled to demand, his brain was racing far ahead of the
matter in hand. It was the Judge himself who engineered the half
hour's delay which resulted in the fullest possible audience for their
appearance that morning. While he had never attended it himself,
except now and then by chance, he knew too well the infallibility of
that little knot of regulars who watched Old Jerry's daily departure
to have any fears that the first of that day's many thrills would go
unseen or unsung. And he timed their arrival to a second.

Old Jerry was in the doorway, ready for his straight-backed descent of
the worn steps, when Judge Maynard pulled his smooth gaited pair to a
restive standstill before the office and gave the reins into Young
Denny's keeping. The throng of old men upon the sidewalk was at the
point of opening ranks to allow him to pass through to his tattered
buggy, which stood at the roadside, a bare half-length ahead of the
Judge's polished equipage. And now those same ranks broke in wild
disorder and then closed tighter even than before, while they shifted
and struggled for a better view.

They forgot the ceremonious solemnity of the moment and the little,
birdlike figure upon the top step trying not to show too plainly upon
his face a sense of his own importance--they forgot everything but the
portend of the scene which the Judge was handling in so masterful a
fashion.

The latter's descent from his seat to the ground was deliberate, even
for hi