One night Barbee had him serenaded.  He gave the musicians instruction as to the tunes, how they were to be played, in what succession, at what hour of the night.  The melodists grouped themselves in the middle of the street, and the Judge came out on a little veranda under one of his doors and stood there, a great silver-haired figure, looking down.  The moonlight shone upon him.  He remained for a while motionless, wrapped loosely in what looked like a white toga.  Then with a slight gesture of the hand full of mournful dignity he withdrew.

It was during these days that Barbee, who always watched over him with a most reverent worship and affection, made a discovery.  The Judge was breaking; that brave life was beginning to sink and totter toward its fall and dissolution.  There were moments when the cheerfulness, which had never failed him in the midst of trial, failed him now when there was none; when the ancient springs of strength ceased to run and he was discovered to be feeble.  Sometimes he no longer read his morning newspaper; he would sit for long periods in the front door of his office, looking out into the street and caring not who passed, not even returning salutations:  what was the use of saluting the human race impartially?  Or going into the rear office, he would reread pages and chapters of what at different times in his life had been his favorite books:  “Rabelais” and “The Decameron” when he was young; “Don Quixote” later, and “Faust”; “Clarissa” and “Tom Jones” now and then; and Shakespeare always; and those poems of Burns that tell sad truths; and the account of the man in Thackeray who went through so much that was large and at the end of life was brought down to so much that was low.  He seemed more and more to feel the need of grasping through books the hand of erring humanity.  And from day to day his conversations with Barbee began to take more the form of counsels about life and duty, about the ideals and mistakes and virtues and weaknesses in men.  He had a good deal to say about the ethics of character in the court room and in the street.

One afternoon Barbee very thoughtfully asked him a question:  “Uncle, I have wanted to know why you always defended and never prosecuted.  The State is supposed to stand for justice, and the State is the accuser; in always defending the accused and so in working against the State, have you not always worked against justice?”

The Judge sat with his face turned away and spoke as he sat—­very gravely and quietly:  “I always defended because the State can punish only the accused, and the accused is never the only criminal.  In every crime there are three criminals.  The first criminal is the Origin of Evil.  I don’t know what the Origin of Evil is, or who he is; but if I could have dragged the Origin of Evil into the court room, I should have been glad to try to have it hanged, or have him hanged.  I should have liked to argue the greatest of all possible criminal