f it.
Perhaps they were right. Certainly he had a way of seeking short cuts
through thickets of legal verbiage to the rights of things, the which
often gave acute sorrow to the souls of those members of the bar who
venerated the very ink in which the statutory act had been printed and
worshiped manfully before the graven images of precedent. But elsewise,
generally speaking, it appeared to give satisfaction. Nobody ever beat
the judge in any of his races for reelection, and after a while they
just naturally quit trying.

Nor did it seem to distress him deeply when the grave and learned lords
of the highest tribunal of the commonwealth saw fit, as they sometimes
did, to quarrel with a decision of his which, according to their lights,
ran counter to the authorities and the traditions revered by these
august gentlemen.

"Ah-hah!" he would say in his high penny-flute voice when such a thing
happened. "I see where the honorable court of appeals has disagreed with
me agin. Well, they've still got quite a piece to go yit before they
ketch up with the number of times I've disagreed with them."

But he never said such a thing in open court. Such utterances he
reserved for his cronies and confidants. Once he was under the dented
tin dome where he sat for so many years he became so firm a stickler for
the forms and the dignities that practically a sacerdotal air was
imparted to the proceedings. As you might say, he was almost high church
in his adherence to the ritualisms. Lawyers coming before him did not
practice the law in their shirt sleeves. They might do this when
appearing on certain neighbor circuits, but not here. They did not smoke
while court was in session, or sit reared back in their chairs with
their feet up on the counsel tables and on the bar railings. Of course
when not actually engaged in addressing the court one might chew tobacco
in moderation, it being an indisputable fact that such was conducive to
lubrication of the mental processes and a sedative for the nerves
besides; but the act of chewing must be discreetly and inaudibly carried
on, and he who in the heat of argument or under the stress of
cross-questioning a perverse witness failed to patronize the cuspidors
which dotted the floor at suitable intervals stood in peril of a stern
admonishment for the first offense and a fine for the second.

Off the bench our judge was the homeliest and simplest of men. On the
bench he wore his baggy old alpaca coat