"Lost your conceit, eh?" asked the judge, grinning.
"No more family parties for me," returned Dunham doggedly.
"Oh, come now, be good-natured and obliging."
"Never again while I live," was the response.
"I've never praised you half enough for your work on that job," said the judge ingratiatingly. "The more I think of it the more I wonder where we'd have brought up in the affair if it hadn't been for you."
"You might as well flatter the Sphinx," remarked John impersonally.
Judge Trent laughed. "Afraid of a little girl, eh?"
Dunham shrugged his shoulders. "I shouldn't be the first man. Why don't you send Miss Lacey?"
"H'm," grunted the judge thoughtfully.
John smiled. "Provide her with a full suit of chain-armor and I fancy she'd accept the detail."