“That family will naturally want to do something for you, too, Dave,” he said at last.

“Do something for me?” Dave’s fingers hung waiting above the strings.

“Why not?  You’re the boy’s father, ain’t you?  Facts is facts, no matter what the law says.  You’re his absolute progenitor, ain’t you?  Well, you living here in the same town, they’ll naturally want you to be somebody, won’t they?”

“Oh!” Dave struck the waiting chord.  “Well, I am somebody, ain’t I?”

The judge waved this aside with a fat, deprecating hand.

“Oh, in that way!  Of course, everybody’s somebody—­every living, breathing soul.  But what I’m getting at—­they’ll naturally try to make something out of you, instead of just being kind of a no-account tramp printer.”

“Ha!  Is that so, old small-towner?”

“Shouldn’t wonder if they’d want to take you into the bank, mebbe—­cashier or something, or manage one of the farms or factories, or set you up in business of some kind.  You might git to be president of the First National.”

“They might make you a director, too, I suppose.”

“Well, you can snicker, but stranger things have happened.”

The judge reflected, seeing himself truly a bank director, wearing his silk hat and frock coat every day—­perhaps playing checkers with Harvey D. in the back office at quiet moments.  Bank directing would surely be a suitable occupation for an invalid.  Dave muted the vibrant strings with a hand.

“Listen, Old Flapdoodle!  I wouldn’t tie myself up in this one-horse bunch of hovels, not if they’d give me the bank and all the money in it and all the Whipple farms and throw in the post office and the jail and the depot.  Get that?”

“Ho!  Sour grapes!” returned the judge, stung to a biting wit by the coarse form of address.  But Dave played music above the taunt.

* * * * *

Nevertheless, he was not wholly surprised the following day when, politely invited to another conference at the bank, old Gideon Whipple, alone there, put the matter of his future somewhat after the manner of Judge Penniman, though far less crudely.  Old Gideon sat across the table from him, and after Dave had put a cigar in his upper left-hand waistcoat pocket he became considerate but pointed.

“My son and I have been talking, Mr. Cowan, and we agree that something is due you as the boy’s father.  We want to show you every consideration—­show it liberally.  You seem to have led rather an—­shall we say an unsettled life up to this time?  Not that it’s anything to be criticised; you follow your own tastes, as every man should.  But it occurred to us that you might care to feel more settled in some stable occupation where you could look forward to a solid future—­all that sort of thing.”

Dave nodded, waiting, trying to word the talk the old man and his son would have had about him.  Harvey Whipple would have been troubled at the near presence of the father of his new son as a mere journeyman printer.  Undoubtedly the two would have used the phrase the judge had used—­they would want him to make something of himself.