ined and shriveled
and needle scarred. And he took her hand in his fat, pudgy, awkward one,
and then he did this thing which never before in all his days he had
done, this thing which never before he had dreamed of doing. Really,
there is no accounting for it at all unless we figure that somewhere far
back in Judge Priest's ancestry there were Celtic gallants, versed in
the small sweet tricks of gallantry. He bent his head and he kissed her
hand with a grace for which a Tom Moore or a Raleigh might have envied
him.

Let us now for a briefened space cast up in a preliminary way the tally
on behalf of the whimsical devils of circumstance and the part they are
to play in the culminating and concluding periods of this narrative. On
the noon train of the day following the night when that occurred which
has been set forth in the foregoing pages, Judge Priest, in the company
of Doctor Lake and Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, late of King's Hell Hounds,
C.S.A., departs for Reelfoot Lake upon his annual fishing trip. In the
afternoon Jeff Poindexter, the judge's body servant, going through his
master's wardrobe seeking articles suitable for his own adornment in the
master's absence, is pained to discern stripings of spilled ink down the
legs of a pair of otherwise unmarred white trousers, and, having no
intention that garments which will one day come into his permanent
possession shall be thus disfigured and sullied, promptly bundles them
up and bears them to the cleansing, pressing and repairing establishment
of one Hyman Pedaloski. The coat which matches the trousers goes along
too. Upon the underside of one of its sleeves there is a big ink blob.
Include in the equation this _emigre_, Hyman Pedaloski, newly landed
from Courland and knowing as yet but little of English, whether written
or spoken, yet destined to advance by progressive stages until a day
comes when we proudly shall hail him as our most fashionable merchant
prince--Hy Clay Pedaloski, the Square Deal Clothier, Also Hats, Caps &
Leather Goods. Include as a factor Hyman by all means, for lacking him
our chain of chancy coincidence would lack a most vital link.

At Reelfoot Lake many black bass, bronze-backed and big-mouthed, meet
the happy fate which all true anglers wish for them; and the white
perch do bite with a whole-souled enthusiasm only equaled by the
whole-souled enthusiasm with which also the mosquitoes bite. This brings
us to the end of the week and to the fift