sit on the edge in Mariposa. It is meant to indicate what part of the
family they have come to see. Thus when George Duff, the bank
manager, came up to the Pepperleigh house, he always sat in a chair
on the verandah and talked to the judge. But when Pupkin or Mallory
Tompkins or any fellow like that came, he sat down in a sidelong
fashion on the edge of the boards and then they knew exactly what he
was there for. If he knew the house well, he leaned his back against
the verandah post and smoked a cigarette. But that took nerve.

But I am afraid that this is a digression, and, of course, you know
all about it just as well as I do. All that I was trying to say was
that I don't suppose that the judge had ever spoken a cross word to
Zena in his life.--Oh, he threw her novel over the grape-vine, I
don't deny that, but then why on earth should a girl read trash like
the Errant Quest of the Palladin Pilgrim, and the Life of Sir
Galahad, when the house was full of good reading like The Life of Sir
John A. Macdonald, and Pioneer Days in Tecumseh Township?


Still, what I mean is that the judge never spoke harshly to Zena,
except perhaps under extreme provocation; and I am quite sure that he
never, never had to Neil. But then what father ever would want to
speak angrily to such a boy as Neil Pepperleigh? The judge took no
credit himself for that; the finest grown boy in the whole county and
so broad and big that they took him into the Missinaba Horse when he
was only seventeen. And clever,--so clever that he didn't need to
study; so clever that he used to come out at the foot of the class in
mathematics at the Mariposa high school through sheer surplus of
brain power. I've heard the judge explain it a dozen times. Why,
Neil was so clever that he used to be able to play billiards at the