“Gentlemen and ladies, we have to begin somewheres.  What am I bid?”

A menacing murmur gave place to the accusing silence.  Some there were who gazed at the Rothfield with longing eyes, but who had no intention of committing social suicide.  Suddenly a voice, the rasp of which penetrated to St. Charles Street, came out with a bid.  The owner was a seedy man with a straw-colored, drunkard’s mustache.  He was leaning against the body of Mrs. Russell’s barouche (seized for sale), and those about him shrank away as from smallpox.  His hundred-dollar offer was followed by a hiss.  What followed next Stephen will always remember.  When Judge Whipple drew himself up to his full six feet, that was a warning to those that knew him.  As he doubled the bid, the words came out with the aggressive distinctness of a man who through a long life has been used to opposition.  He with the gnawed yellow mustache pushed himself clear of the barouche, his smouldering cigar butt dropping to the floor.  But there were no hisses now.

And this is how Judge Whipple braved public opinion once more.  As he stood there, defiant, many were the conjectures as to what he could wish to do with the piano of his old friend.  Those who knew the Judge (and there were few who did not) pictured to themselves the dingy little apartment where he lived, and smiled.  Whatever his detractors might have said of him, no one was ever heard to avow that he had bought or sold anything for gain.

A tremor ran through the people.  Could it have been of admiration for the fine old man who towered there glaring defiance at those about him?  “Give me a strong and consistent enemy,” some great personage has said, “rather than a lukewarm friend.”  Three score and five years the Judge had lived, and now some were beginning to suspect that he had a heart.  Verily he had guarded his secret well.  But it was let out to many more that day, and they went home praising him who had once pronounced his name with bitterness.

This is what happened.  Before he of the yellow mustache could pick up his cigar from the floor and make another bid, the Judge had cried out a sum which was the total of Colonel Carvel’s assessment.  Many recall to this day how fiercely he frowned when the applause broke forth of itself; and when he turned to go they made a path for him, in admiration, the length of the hall, down which he stalked, looking neither to the right nor left.  Stephen followed him, thankful for the day which had brought him into the service of such a man.

And so it came about that the other articles were returned to Colonel Carvel with the marshal’s compliments, and put back into the cold parlor where they had stood for many years.  The men who brought them offered to put down the carpet, but by Virginia’s orders the rolls were stood up in the corner, and the floor left bare.  And days passed into weeks, and no sign or message came from Judge Whipple in regard to the piano he had bought.  Virginia did not dare mention it to the Colonel.