Chapter 10 WILLIAM AGREED WITH THE JUDGE.

The Judge took his accustomed seat at the head of the breakfast table, Howard on his right and Bodney's vacant chair at his left; but there was no disposition on the part of the worry-haunted father to enter into conversation with the son. Howard was talkative; his mind might have been termed dyspeptic instead of digestive. The books, stories, sketches, scraps that he read, ill-stored, appeared as a patchwork in his talk. He spoke of a French author, and Florence saw the Judge wince. She was sitting beside Howard, and she pulled at his coat sleeve as a warning to drop the disagreeable name.

He understood and changed the subject, but the fire had been kindled.

"It is no wonder that the French could not whip the Germans," said the Judge, not addressing himself to Howard, but to the table. "It was the literature of France that weakened her armies. Morality was destroyed, and without morality there can be no enduring courage."

"I think Victor Hugo is just lovely," said Agnes. The Judge nodded assent. "A great genius-and, by the way, he said that there were but three men worthy to be estimated as memorable in all the history of this life-Moses, Shakespeare and Homer. He belonged to older and better France, at the dying end of her greatness. And you will observe that he did not include a Frenchman in his list."

"But I warrant you," said Howard, "that in his secret mind he put himself at the head of it."

The Judge looked at him. "Warrants issued by you, sir, are not always returnable accompanied by the facts."

"No, I wouldn't issue a warrant for the arrest of a fact. Truth ought to be at large."

Florence glanced at the Judge and saw him slowly close his eyes and slowly open them. "You think Hugo lovely," said the old man, speaking to Agnes. "But what do you think of Zola?"

"I don't know anything about him. But some of the girls said he was horrid," she answered.

"It is a good thing for you that you don't know anything about him, and it reflects credit upon the judgment of the girls who pronounced him horrid," said the Judge. "His influence upon his own country, and upon this country, too, has been most pernicious."

William was usually most prompt at meal time, but now he was for some unaccountable reason delayed; but he came in just as the Judge closed his remark concerning Zola, sat down and began to tuck a napkin under his chin. The Judge had more than once hinted his displeasure at this vulgarity, but his brother continued to practice it, not without heeding the hint, but with a defense of his custom. He had elected governors, and was not to be ruled into discomfort by a woman who had written a book on etiquette. He knew politeness as well as the next man or next woman, for that matter. Many a time had he seen Senator Bascomb, who owed his election to him, sit down to table in his shirt sleeves, with a napkin tucked into his bosom, and Washington City was compelled to acknowledge him a man of brains. The Judge stared at William, and was doubtless about to repeat his hint, when Florence said something to attract his eye, and shook her head at him.

"What have we under discussion this morning?" said William, squaring in readiness to defend himself, for he ever expected an attack.

"French literature," Howard answered.

"French fiddlesticks," William replied. "There is no French literature. They have slop that they call literature."

"I thank you, William," said the Judge, forgetting the napkin. This was received by the former owner of Montana as proof that the Judge's ill-nature had been cured; and, bowing, he pulled the napkin from about his jowl and spread it upon his knees. And then arose a spirited discussion between the political Warwick and Howard, the former snatching a cue from his brother, affirming that the influence of France had always been bad, the latter maintaining that France had civilized and cultivated the modern world. Florence pulled at Howard's coat sleeve; and the Judge, observing her, and irritated that she was moved to employ restraint, threw off all attempt at an exercise of his patience. "Let him proceed!" he roared, and everyone looked at him in surprise. "Let him proceed to the end of his disgraceful advocacy of corruption. But I will not stay to hear it." And, getting up, he bowed himself out.

"Howard," said Mrs. Elbridge, "you ought not to talk about things that irritate your father. He is not well."

"You are wrong, Howard, to oppose him," Florence spoke up.

"I suppose I am," the young man admitted, "but he has always taught me to form an opinion of my own and to hold it when once well formed, and until recently he seemed pleased at what he termed my individuality and independence. But now I can't do or say a thing to please him. I'm no child, and not a fool, I hope; then, why should I be treated as if I had no sense at all? What have I done that he should turn against me? He treats everyone else with consideration and respect. He even has toleration of Uncle William's dates," he added, mischievously thrusting at the old fellow for the recent stand he had taken, knowing that, with him, it was the policy of the moment rather than the conviction of the hour.

"What!" exclaimed William, with a bat of eye and a swell of jaw. "Turned loose on me, have you? Well, I want to tell you, sir, that I won't stand it. I am aware that my forbearance heretofore may have misled you with regard to the extent of my endurance, but I want to say that you have made a mistake. I am treated with consideration and respect everywhere except in this household, and I won't stand it, that's all."

"Thank you," Howard replied.

"Thank me! Thank me for what?"

"You said, 'that's all,' and I thank you for it."

Mrs. Elbridge interposed with a mild and smiling admonition. She shook her finger at Howard. "Let him go ahead, Rachel," the old fellow spoke up. "Let him go ahead as far as his strength will permit him. He's-he's set himself against us, and as he runs riot in the privilege of the spoiled heir, why, I guess we'll have to stand it-as long as we can. Of course, there'll come a time when all bodily and moral strength will fail us, but until then let him go ahead. Yes, has set himself against us."

"Us, did you say, Uncle Billy? You are evidently one of the us. Who's the other?" Howard asked, immensely tickled, for the warmth of the family joke was most genial to him.

"I don't want any of your Uncle Billying. I always know what to expect when you begin that."

"I began it the other night and ended by giving you a meerschaum pipe, didn't I?"

"Oh, meerschaum. Chalk-if there ever was a piece used by a tailor to mark out the angles of a raw-boned man-that pipe's chalk. You could no more color it than you could a door-knob."

"A friend of mine brought it from Germany, Uncle Billy."

"Did he? He brought it from a German beer garden, where they peddle them in baskets and sell them by the paper bag full, like popcorn. I had my suspicions at the time."

"But you were willing to run the risk of acceptance because your pipe was so strong."

The old fellow put down his knife and fork and, straightening up, looked at Howard as if he would bore him through. "I deny your slander, sir."

"So do I," said Howard.

"You do what?"

"Deny the slander-unless there is slander in truth."

"Howard, you remind me of a cart-horse, treading on his trace chains. You remind me-I don't know what you remind me of."

"Of a cart-horse, you said."

Again Mrs. Elbridge admonished him not to irritate the old fellow, but did it so laughingly that he accepted it more as a spur than as a restraint; and Florence pulled at his sleeve, but more in connivance than in reproof. Agnes laughed outright. She declared that it was better than a circus. The old man turned his eyes upon her, giving her a long and steady gaze, and she whispered to Florence that even the pin-feathers of his dignity had begun to rise. "Better than a circus," he replied. "I don't see any similarity except that we have a clown." He winked at Mrs. Elbridge, as if he expected her to rejoice in what he believed to be a victory over the young man. Marriage may cripple a man's opportunities-in some respects it may restrict his range of vision, but it renders his near view much more nearly exact. Having never known the repressions of the married state-ignorant of the intellectual clearing-house of matrimony-William was blind to many things, and particularly to the fact that the mother hated him at that moment, though she smiled when he winked at her.

"Not much like modern circuses," Howard admitted. "They have a whole group of clowns, while we have but two, at most."

"Howard," said the old fellow, "do you mean to call me a clown?"

"Not a good one, Uncle William."

"Not a good one. Well, sir, I want to say that I'd make a deuced sight better one than you." When emphasis was put upon the word, it meant, with Uncle William, not the opprobrious, but the commendable. During his boyhood, to be a clown was to be greater than a judge, greater, if possible, than the driver of a stage-coach. In the old day, it was a compliment to tell a boy that he would make a good clown.

"I don't doubt you'd make a good clown, Uncle Billy. Aspiration is, within itself, a sort of fitness."

"What do you mean by that?"

"There is a certain genius in mere ambition," Howard went on. "If we yearn-and yearn, only, we come nearer to an achievement than those who don't yearn. Who knows that genius is not desire-just desire, and nothing more. I know a man over at St. Jo that can eat more cherries than any man in Michigan, not because he is larger than any of the rest, but because he has a broader appetite for cherries-more yearning."

William turned to Mrs. Elbridge. "Rachel, do you think he's lost what little sense he ever had."

"William," she said, "you must not talk to me that way. I won't put up with it, sir. I am sure he has as good sense as any-"

"Oh, if you are going to turn against me I guess I'd better go," he broke in, getting up. "I'll go to my brother. He at least can understand me."

The Judge was in the office. William entered, and, going up to the desk, began to rummage among some papers. "Trying to swim?" the Judge asked, looking up from a document spread out before him on the table.

"No, I'm looking for a cigar."

"I thought you were trying to swim."

William stepped back from the desk. "John, I didn't expect such treatment after our hearty agreement at the breakfast table. But it's what I get for taking sides. The neutral is the only man that gets through this life in good shape."

"And is that the reason, William, that you didn't preach-didn't want to take sides against the devil?"

"If I'm not wanted here, I can go to my own room."

"I wish you would. I am expecting an old client."

"Oh, I can go."

"Can you?"

"John, your irritability has irritated everybody on the place. You have poisoned our atmosphere. I will leave you."

"Thank you," said the Judge, examining the document before him. After a time, and still without looking up, he added: "Still here?"

"I have just come in, sir," said Howard. The Judge looked up.

"I thought it was William."

"He has just gone out. And I have come to beg your pardon for what I said at breakfast. I didn't mean to worry you; I-"

"It is unnecessary to beg my pardon, sir."

"I hope not." He moved closer, with one hand resting upon the table. "Father, something is wrong, and-"

"Most decidedly."

"But won't you please tell me what it is? If the fault is in me and I can reach it I will pull it out. I could bear many crosses, but your ill-opinion is too heavy."

The old man looked up at him. "To your lack of virtue you have added silly reading."

"But I am playing in a farce worse than any I have ever read. Be frank with me. You have taught me frankness."

"And tried to teach you honesty."

"Yes, both by precept and example. But what is to come of it all when you treat me this way? Why don't you go to some springs?"

"Why don't you leave me to myself?"

"I am almost afraid. You rake up enmities against me when you are alone, it seems; and you pour them out upon me when we meet. Why is it?"

The Judge waved him off. "Go away," he said.