Mahaffy having spoken his mind, preserved a stony silence.

The judge got up and replenished the camp-fire, which had burnt low, then squatting before it, he peered into the flames.

“You’ll not deny, Solomon, that Miss Malroy exhibited a real affection for Hannibal?” he began.

“Now don’t you try to borrow money of her, Price,” said Mahaffy, returning to the attack.

“Solomon—­Solomon—­how can you?”

“That’ll be your next move.  Now let her alone; let Hannibal have his luck as it comes to him.”

“You seem to forget, sir, that I still bear the name of gentleman!” said the judge.

Mahaffy gave way to acid merriment.

“Well, see that you are not tempted to forget that,” he observed.

“If I didn’t know your sterling qualities, Solomon, and pay homage to ’em, I might be tempted to take offense,” said the judge.

“It’s like pouring water on a duck’s back to talk to you, Price; nothing strikes in.”

“On the contrary, I am at all times ready to listen to reason from any quarter, but I’ve studied this matter in its many-sided aspect.  I won’t say we might not do better in Memphis, but we must consider the boy.  No; if I can find a vacant house in Raleigh, I wouldn’t ask a finer spot in which to spend the afternoon of my life.”

“Afternoon?” snapped Mahaffy irritably.

“That’s right—­carp—!  But you can’t relegate me!  You can’t shove me away from the portal of hope—­metaphorically speaking, I’m on the stoop; it may be God’s pleasure that I enter; there’s a place for gray heads—­and there’s a respectable slice of life after the meridian is passed.”

“Humph!” said Mahaffy.

“I’ve made my impression; I’ve been thrown with cultivated minds quick to recognize superiority; I’ve met with deference and consideration.”

“Aren’t you forgetting the boy?” inquired Mahaffy.  “No, sir!  I regard my obligations where he is concerned as a sacred trust to be administered in a lofty and impersonal manner.  If his friends—­if Miss Malroy, for instance—­cares to make me the instrument of her benefactions, I’ll not be disposed to stand on my dignity; but his education shall be my care.  I’ll make such a lawyer of him as America has not seen before!  I don’t ask you to accept my own opinion of my fitness to do this, but two gentlemen with whom I talked this evening—­one of them was the justice of the peace—­were pleased to say that they had never heard such illuminating comments on the criminal law.  I quoted the Greeks and Romans to ’em, sir; I gave ’em the salient points on mediaeval law; and they were dumfounded and speechless.  I reckon they’d never heard such an exposition of fundamental principles; I showed ’em the germ and I showed ’em fruition.  Damn it, sir, they were overwhelmed by the array of facts I marshaled for ’em.  They said they’d never met with such erudition—­no more they had, for I boiled down thirty years of study into ten minutes of talk!  I flogged ’em with facts, and then we drank—­” The judge smacked his lips.  “It is this free-handed hospitality I like; it’s this that gives life its gala aspect.”