He forgot former experiences; but without this kindly refusal of memory to perform its wonted functions, the world would have been a chill place indeed for Slocum Price.  But Mahaffy, keen and anxious, with doubt in every glass he drained, a lurking devil to grin at him above the rim, could see only the end of their brief hour of welcome.  This made the present moment as bitter as the last.

“I have a theory, Solomon, that I shall be handsomely supported by my new friends.  They’ll snatch at the opportunity.”

“I see ’em snatching, Mr. Price,” said Mahaffy grimly.

“That’s right—­go on and plant doubt in my heart if you can!  You’re as hopeless as the grave side!” cried the judge, a spasm of rage shaking him.

“The thing for us to do—­you and I, Price—­is to clear out of here,” said Mahaffy,

“But what of the boy?”

“Leave him with his friends.”

“How do you know Miss Malroy would be willing to assume his care?  It’s scandalous the way you leap at conclusions.  No, Solomon, no—­I won’t shirk a single irksome responsibility,” and the judge’s voice shook with suppressed emotion.  Mahaffy laughed.  “There you go again, Solomon, with that indecent mirth of yours!  Friendship aside, you grow more offensive every day.”  The judge paused and then resumed.  “I understand there’s a federal judgeship vacant here.  The president—­” Mr. Mahafly gave him a furtive leer.  “I tell you General Jackson was my friend—­we were brothers, sir—­I stood at his side on the glorious blood-wet field of New Orleans!  You don’t believe me "

“Price, you’ve made more demands on my stock of credulity than any man I’ve ever known!”

The judge became somber-faced.

“Unparalleled misfortune overtook me—­I stepped aside, but the world never waits; I was a cog discarded from the mechanism of society—­” He was so pleased with the metaphor that he repeated it.

“Look here, Price, you talk as though you were a modern job; what’s the matter anyhow?—­have you got boils?”

The judge froze into stony silence.  Well, Mahaffy could sneer —­he would show him!  This was the last ditch and he proposed to descend into it, it was something to be able to demand the final word of fate—­but he instantly recalled that he had been playing at hide-and-seek with inevitable consequences for something like a quarter of a century; it had been a triumph merely to exist.  Mahaffy having eased his conscience, rolled over and promptly went to sleep.  Flat on his back, the judge stared up at the wide blue arch of the heavens and rehearsed those promises which in the last twenty years he had made and broken times without number.  He planned no sweeping reforms, his system of morality being little more than a series of graceful compromises with himself.  He must not get hopelessly in debt; he must not get helplessly drunk.  Dealing candidly with his own soul in the silence, he presently came to the belief that this might be done without special hardship.  Then suddenly the rusted name-plate on Hannibal’s old rifle danced again before his burning eyes, and a bitter sense of hurt and loss struck through him.  He saw himself as he was, a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, the utter travesty of all he should have been; he dropped his arm across his face.