this day of days with a
tiresome old pest, and now he again made an evasive answer.

"Mendacity is at once the lowest and the commonest form of deceit," the
judge indignantly announced. "You know perfectly well when she's
coming, damn you!"

"Honest, I don't--not exactly."

But the judge was unconvinced. "You've been as mysterious as a
bootlegger for the last week, but I could always read you like a book,
Tom Parker. You know, all right. Mrs. Halloran wants to come over and
fix things up for her. She said so this--"

"Oh, I got everything fixed," Tom hastily declared. "Ha! What did I
tell you?" The judge glared; Tom could have bitten his tongue for that
slip. "Your pitiful attempts to mislead Barbara's admirers expose you
to ridicule, and offend those of us who tolerate you out of regard for
her." (The judge had a nice Texas drawl, and he pronounced it
"reegy'ad.") "You're on your way to the train at this moment and--I
propose to accompany you."

"What would I be going to the train for, now?" Tom inquired, in a
deceitfully mild tone. Inwardly he was raging, and he cursed the judge
for a meddlesome old fool.

"Hm-m! Thought you'd sneak down there, unobserved, probably." There was
a pause; then the speaker went on in an altered tone: "D'you suppose
she has forgotten all her native accomplishments, Tom? I wonder if she
can still ride and rope and shoot, or if those thin-blooded Eastern
schoolma'ams have taught her that such things are unladylike and
coarse."

"Pshaw! You never forget how to do those things."

"She could handle a horse or a rope or a gun as well as you at your
best."

"_Better!_" Tom declared, with swelling pride.

Halloran wagged his white head in agreement, an unusual procedure,
inasmuch as he never agreed with Tom on any subject which offered
possible ground for disagreement. "A wonderful girl! And I'll wager
they haven't spoiled her. Even _you_ couldn't spoil 'Bob.'" He raised
his red, belligerent eyes and fixed them upon his old friend, but there
was now a kindly light in them. "You made a real son of her, didn't
you, Tom?"

"Almost. I was mighty disappointed because she was a girl, but--I don't
know as a boy could of turned out much better. Well, Judge, I got to be
moving."

"You are neither grammatical nor precise," snapped Judge Halloran. "You
mean _we_ must be moving." He linked arms with Tom and fell into step
with him; he clung to that rigid arm, moreover, despite Tom's surly
d