ith the present and sympathizing
with the future. As he careened along night after night, then,
friendly little gusts of salutation blew the desolate drifting
figure over the homeward course.

His rooms were near the heart of the town, In a shady street well
filled with law offices: these were of red brick with green
shutters--green when not white with dust. The fire department was
in the same block, though he himself did not need to be safeguarded
from conflagrations: the fires which had always troubled him could
not have been reached with ladder and hose. There were two or
three livery stables also, the chairs of which he patronized
liberally, but not the vehicles. And there was a grocery, where he
sometimes bought crystallized citron and Brazil nuts, a curious
kind of condiment of his own devising: a pound of citron to a pound
of nuts, if all were sound. He used to keep little brown paper
bags of these locked in his drawer with legal papers and munched
them sometimes while preparing murder cases.

At the upper corner of the block, opposite each other, were a
saloon and the jail, two establishments which contributed little to
each other's support, though well inclined to do so. The law
offices seemed of old to have started in a compact procession for
the jail, but at a certain point to have paused with the
understanding that none should seek undue advantage by greater
proximity. Issuing from this street at one end and turning to the
left, you came to the courthouse--the bar of chancery; issuing from
it at the other end and turning to the right, you came to the
hotel--the bar of corn. The lawyers were usually solicitors at
large and impartial practitioners at each bar. In the court room
they sometimes tried to prove an alibi for their clients; at the
hotel they often succeeded in proving one for themselves.

These law offices were raised a foot or two above the level of the
street. The front rooms could be used for clients who were so
important that they should be seen; the back rooms were for such as
brought business, but not necessarily fame. Driving through this
street, the wives of the lawyers could lean forward in their
carriages and if their husbands were busy, they could smile and
bow; if their husbands were idle, they could look straight ahead.

He passed under the shadow of the old court-house where in his
prime he had fought his legal battles against the commonwealth. He
had been a great law