“No, I suppose not—­” and Betty saw that perhaps, after all, the judge had not assumed any very great financial responsibility.  “He can’t be a coward, though, Hannibal!” she added, for she understood that the risk of personal violence which he ran was quite genuine.  She had formed her own unsympathetic estimate of him that day at Boggs’ race-track; Mahaffy in his blackest hour could have added nothing to it.  Twice since then she had met him in Raleigh, which had only served to fix that first impression.

“Miss Betty, he’s just like my Uncle Bob was- he ain’t afraid of nothing!  He totes them pistols of his—­loaded—­if you notice good you can see where they bulge out his coat!” Hannibal’s eyes, very round and big, looked up into hers.

“Is he as poor as he seems, Hannibal?” inquired Betty.

“He never has no money, Miss Betty, but I don’t reckon he’s what a body would call pore.”

It might have baffled a far more mature intelligence than Hannibal’s to comprehend those peculiar processes by which the judge sustained himself and his intimate fellowship with adversity—­that it was his magnificence of mind which made the squalor of his daily life seem merely a passing phase—­but the boy had managed to point a delicate distinction, and Betty grasped something of the hope and faith which never quite died out in Slocum Price’s indomitable breast.

“But you always have enough to eat, dear?” she questioned anxiously.  Hannibal promptly reassured her on this point.  “You wouldn’t let me think anything that was not true, Hannibal—­you are quite sure you have never been hungry?”

“Never, Miss Betty; honest!”

Betty gave a sigh of relief.  She had been reproaching herself for her neglect of the child; she had meant to do so much for him and had done nothing!  Now it was too late for her personally to interest herself in his behalf, yet before she left for the East she would provide for him.  If she had felt it was possible to trust the judge she would have made him her agent, but even in his best aspect he seemed a dubious dependence.  Tom, for quite different reasons, was equally out of the question.  She thought of Mr. Mahaffy.

“What kind of a man is Mr. Mahaffy, Hannibal?”

“He’s an awful nice man, Miss Eetty, only he never lets on; a body’s got to find it out for his own self—­he ain’t like the judge.”

“Does he—­drink, too, Hannibal?” questioned Betty.

“Oh, yes; when he can get the licker, he does.”  It was evident that Hannibal was cheerfully tolerant of this weakness on the part of the austere Mahaffy.  By this time Betty was ready to weep over the child, with his knowledge of shabby vice, and his fresh young faith in those old tatterdemalions.

“But, no matter what they do, they are very, very kind to you?” she continued quite tremulously.

“Yes, ma’am—­why, Miss Betty, they’re lovely men!”