But Solomon Mahaffy’s long face did not relax in its set expression.

“I saw your light,” he explained, “but you seem to be raising first-rate hell all by yourself.”

“Oh, be reasonable, Solomon.  You’d gone down to the steamboat landing,” said the judge plaintively.  By way of answer, Mahaffy shot him a contemptuous glance.  “Take a chair—­do, Solomon!” entreated the judge.

“I don’t force my society on any man, Mr. Price,” said Mahaffy, with austere hostility of tone.  The judge winced at the “Mr.”  That registered the extreme of Mahaffy’s disfavor.

“You feel bitter about this, Solomon?” he said.

“I do,” said Mahaffy, in a tone of utter finality.

“You’ll feel better with three fingers of this trickling through your system,” observed the judge, pushing a glass toward him.

“When did I ever sneak a jug into my shanty?” asked Mahaffy sternly, evidently conscious of entire rectitude in this matter.

“I deplore your choice of words, Solomon,” said the judge.  “You know damn well that if you’d been here I couldn’t have got past your place with that jug!  But let’s deal with conditions.  Here’s the jug, with some liquor left in it—­here’s a glass.  Now what more do you want?”

“Have I ever been caught like this?” demanded Mahaffy.

“No, you’ve invariably manifested the honorable disabilities of a gentleman.  But don’t set it all down to virtue.  Maybe you haven’t had the opportunity, maybe the temptation never came and found you weak and thirsty.  Put away your sinful pride, Solomon —­a sot like you has no business with the little niceties of selfrespect.”

“Do I drink alone?” insisted Mahaffy doggedly.

“I never give you the chance,” retorted his friend.  Mr. Mahaffy drew near the table.  “Sit down,” urged the judge.

“I hope you feel mean?” said Mahaffy.

“If it’s any satisfaction to you, I do,” admitted the judge.

“You ought to.”  Mahaffy drew forward a chair.  The judge filled his glass.  But Mr. Mahaffy’s lean face, with its long jaws and high cheek-bones, over which the sallow skin was tightly drawn, did not relax in its forbidding expression, even when he had tossed off his first glass.

“I love to see you in a perfectly natural attitude like that, Solomon, with your arm crooked.  What’s the news from the landing?”

Mahaffy brought his fist down on the table.

“I heard the boat churning away round back of the bend, then I saw the lights, and she tied up and they tossed off the freight.  Then she churned away again and her lights got back of the trees on the bank.  There was the lap of waves on the shore, and I was left with the half-dozen miserable loafers who’d crawled out to see the boat come in.  That’s the news six days a week!”

By the river had come the judge, tentatively hopeful, but at heart expecting nothing, therefore immune to disappointment and equipped for failure.  By the river had come Mr. Mahaffy, as unfit as the judge himself, and for the same reason, but sour and bitter with the world, believing always in the possibility of some miracle of regeneration.