espectful--no, that is not the word I want--in this sarcastic--that
is hardly correct--when did he speak thus of us?"

"Yesterday, sir," I answered, "when I was in his house getting warm.
But he didn't mean anything bad, father. Why, he told me that you were
the celebrated Judge Malcolm."

I expected that such gentle flattery would propitiate my father.
Instead, his brows knitted, and he shot forward his head and asked:
"The what kind of a judge, David?"

Before I could reply Mr. Pound injected himself into the examination.

"Pardon me, Judge, but I should like to ask my young friend if
Henderson Blight smiled as he said it."

"No, sir," I answered promptly. "He was just as solemn as you are now."

Miss Spinner fell to choking again. My mother gave vent to a
long-drawn "Dav-id!" an exclamation which I had come to fear as much as
the Seven Seals, and her use of it now so unjustly made me feel as if
every man's hand were against me, for Mr. Pound was solemn, and in
using the best comparison at hand I meant no ill.

"Dav-id!" said my mother again, lifting an admonishing finger.

The good minister saw nothing offensive in my remark, but even repeated
it with a nod of understanding. "As solemn as I am now. Judge
Malcolm, your son has quite accurately described this man Blight's way
of speaking--of saying one thing when he means quite another. I should
hardly dare repeat some of the terms which have come to my ears as
having been applied by him to me. Just the other day, as we were
walking through town, I overheard him talking to Stacy Shunk, and he
referred to my wife as the lovely Mrs. Pound. Now I have no objections
to persons speaking of my wife as lovely, but I want them to mean it
and not to infer quite the opposite."

It was Mrs. Pound's turn to "declare," but she was clearer in the
meaning than Miss Spinner. She would have told us some of the things
Mr. Blight had said of Mr. Pound with a meaning quite as inverted. My
mother, seeing the tempest rising, sought to still it by protesting
that she was sure that in this instance the Professor was quite sincere.

"I know he meant it," she said over and over again, until Mrs. Pound
was unable to make herself heard and retired to silence and coffee.

But Mr. Pound, a believer in truth at all hazards, would not admit that
the Professor did mean it. "A person of such an insinuating character
is a danger to the community," he said. "I have repeatedly warne