General Prince and Colonel
Wallifarro, I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I will, on
my own motion, amend these charges to disorderly conduct. Mr. Clerk,
enter a fine of $19 and a bond of $1,000 for a year."

Morgan Wallifarro was, at once, on his feet.

"May it please your Honour, such a punishment is either much too severe
or much too lenient. I move, your Honour, to increase the fine."

"Motion overruled," came the laconic judgment. "Mr. Clerk, call the next
case."

"Your Honour has fixed a punishment," protested Colonel Wallifarro's son
with a deliberately challenging note in his voice, "which is the highest
fine in your power to inflict without opening to us the door of appeal.
Had you added one dollar, we could have carried it to the Circuit
Court--and we believe that it was only for the purpose of denying us
that right that you amended the charges. In the court of public opinion,
before which even judges must stand judgment, I shall endeavour to make
that unequivocally clear."

"Fine Mr. Wallifarro twenty dollars for contempt of Court!" This time
the voice from the bench rasped truculently, forgetting its suavity.
"And commit him to jail for twenty-four hours."

That evening Boone Wellver paid two calls behind the barred doors of the
city prison. One was to Asa Gregory, who still languished there, and the
other to the lawyer who had been willing to pay for his last word.

"I'm sorry you lashed out, Wallifarro," said Boone. "But I'd be willing
to change places with you, for the satisfaction of having said it."

Morgan grinned with a strong show of white teeth.

"It's cheap at the price," he declared, "and as for lashing out, I
haven't begun yet. From now on I'm going to work regularly at this
contempt of court job, unless I can put some of these gentry behind bars
or make them swim the river. I've hung back for a long while but now
I've enlisted for the war."

As Judge McCabe had said, Morgan lacked the diplomatic touch.

CHAPTER XXVIII

One morning of frosty tang, that touched the pulses with its livening,
found Boone's eyes and thoughts wandering discursively from the papers
massed on his desk. His customary concentration had become a slack
force, though these were days of pressing hours and insistent minutes in
the Wallifarro offices. The reception room was crowded with waiting
figures that savoured of the motley, and this was one of the new things
brought to pass by the str