Solomon, with your arm crooked. What's the news from the
landing?"

Mahaffy brought his fist down on the table.

"I heard the boat churning away round back of the bend, then I
saw the lights, and she tied up and they tossed off the freight.
Then she churned away again and her lights got back of the trees
on the bank. There was the lap of waves on the shore, and I was
left with the half-dozen miserable loafers who'd crawled out to
see the boat come in. That's the news six days a week!"

By the river had come the judge, tentatively hopeful, but at
heart expecting nothing, therefore immune to disappointment and
equipped for failure. By the river had come Mr. Mahaffy, as
unfit as the judge himself, and for the same reason, but sour and
bitter with the world, believing always in the possibility of
some miracle of regeneration.

Pleasantville's weekly paper, The Genius of Liberty, had dwelt at
length upon those distinguished services judge Slocum Price had
rendered the nation in war and peace, the judge having graciously
furnished an array of facts otherwise difficult of access. That
he was drunk at the time had but added to the splendor of the
narrative. He had placed his ripe wisdom, the talents he had so
assiduously cultivated, at the services of his fellow citizens.
He was prepared to represent them in any or all the courts. But
he had remained undisturbed in his condition of preparedness;
that erudite brain was unconcerned with any problem beyond
financing his thirst at the tavern, where presently ingenuity,