He was one of those dynamic creatures who leave the haunting impression of their wills behind them, like the tails of Bo-Peep’s sheep, like the evil dead men have done; he left his intolerant image in the ether for a long time after he had gone, to confront and confound the aged men and hold them in deferential and humiliated silence.  Each of them was mysteriously lowered in his own estimation, and knew that he had been made to seem futile and foolish in the eyes of his fellows.  They were all conscious, too, that the clerk had been acutely receptive of Judge Pike’s reading of them; that he was reviving from his own squelchedness through the later snubbing of the colonel; also that he might further seek to recover his poise by an attack on them for cluttering up the office.

Naturally, Jonas Tabor was the first to speak.  “Judge Pike’s lookin’ mighty well,” he said, admiringly.

“Yes, he is,” ventured Squire Buckalew, with deference; “mighty well.”

“Yes, sir,” echoed Peter Bradbury; “mighty well.”

“He’s a great man,” wheezed Uncle Joe Davey; “a great man, Judge Martin Pike; a great man!”

“I expect he has considerable on his mind,” said the Colonel, who had grown very red.  “I noticed that he hardly seemed to see us.”

“Yes, sir,” Mr. Bradbury corroborated, with an attempt at an amused laugh.  “I noticed it, too.  Of course a man with all his cares and interests must git absent-minded now and then.”

“Of course he does,” said the colonel.  “A man with all his responsibilities—­”

“Yes, that’s so,” came a chorus of the brethren, finding comfort and reassurance as their voices and spirits began to recover from the blight.

“There’s a party at the Judge’s to-night,” said Mr. Bradbury—­“kind of a ball Mamie Pike’s givin’ for the young folks.  Quite a doin’s, I hear.”

“That’s another thing that’s ruining Canaan,” Mr. Arp declared, morosely.  “These entertainments they have nowadays.  Spend all the money out of town—­band from Indianapolis, chicken salad and darkey waiters from Chicago!  And what I want to know is, What’s this town goin’ to do about the nigger question?”

“What about it?” asked Mr. Davey, belligerently.

“What about it?” Mr. Arp mocked, fiercely.  “You better say, `What about it?’ "

“Well, what?” maintained Mr. Davey, steadfastly.

“I’ll bet there ain’t any less than four thousand niggers in Canaan to-day!” Mr. Arp hammered the floor with his stick.  “Every last one of ’em criminals, and more comin’ on every train.”

“No such a thing,” said Squire Buckalew, living up to his bounden duty.  “You look down the street.  There’s the ten-forty-five comin’ in now.  I’ll bet you a straight five-cent Peek-a-Boo cigar there ain’t ary nigger on the whole train, except the sleepin’-car porters.”

“What kind of a way to argue is that?” demanded Mr. Arp, hotly.  “Bettin’ ain’t proof, is it?  Besides, that’s the through express from the East.  I meant trains from the South.”