"Our lovely hostess. May her eyes always be dry, but her cellar never!"
Mrs. Carey laughed.
"You are committing a crime, Judge," she said.
"But not vandalism, Mrs. Carey," he retorted. "Some day, the seekers of evil where there is none are coming to this house. They are going to raid you, Mrs. Carey. And what liquor they find here they will pour into the gutters."
He beamed upon Clancy, set down his glass, and advanced to her.
"Little stranger," he said, "there are many wicked, wicked men in this room to-night. I don't know where Mrs. Carey finds them or why she associates with them. Let us go into a corner while I explain to you why you should know no one in this vile city but myself."
A portly, good-humored-looking woman, who seemed to be bursting from her corsage, tapped the judge on the shoulder.
"Tom, you behave," she said.
The judge sighed. He took Clancy's unresisting hand and lifted it to his lips. His wife, the portly woman, snatched Clancy's hand away.
"Don't pay any attention to him," she said. "He's really an old, old man approaching senility. I know, because I'm married to him. I myself, when a deluded young girl, decided to be a rich old man's darling instead of a poor young man's slave. It was a mistake," she whispered hoarsely. "Youth should never be tied to age."