would admit. His was the largest law library in the town. He had the
most imposing offices--a suite of three rooms, with eke a shiny
base-burner in the reception room. His was one of the three silk hats
in the town.

Thirty-five years earlier, a raw youth from old Vermont, Hollis N.
Bradley had walked into the embryonic settlement of Bloomsbury with a
single law book under his arm, and naught but down upon his chin. He
pleaded his first cause before a judge who rode circuit over a
territory now divided into three Congressional districts. He won his
first case, for his antagonist was even more ignorant than he. As
civilization advanced, he defended fewer men for stealing hogs, and
more for murder and adultery. His practice grew with the growth of the
population of the country about him. He was elected county attorney,
local counsel for the railroad, and judge of the circuit court. He was
mentioned for gubernatorial honours, and would perhaps have received
the party nomination but for the breaking out of the civil war. Not
fancying the personal risks of the army, he hired a substitute, and
this sealed his political fate; for Illinois at that time did not put
in power men who sent substitutes to the war. None the less, the lands
and moneys of the most prominent lawyer of the place kept him secure,
and human memories are short; so that, when Edward Franklin and others
of the young men of Bloomsbury returned from the war, they saw upon the
streets of the little town, as they had seen before they went away, the
tall form, the portly front, the smooth-shaven face, and the tall silk
hat of Judge Hollis N. Bradley, who had in every sense survived the war.

It was an immemorial custom in Bloomsbury for the youth who had
aspirations for a legal career to "read law" in Judge Bradley's office.
Two of his students had dropped their books to take up rifles, and they