“Never mind, come on; it’ll dry while you’re walking,” suggested Hollis from the corner where he was waiting.
The judge stepped back to the planks; he surveyed his befouled person; then he brought out a resounding expletive—half a dozen of them.
“Do it again—if it’ll ease you off,” called Kit, grinning. “When you’re blessing Potterpins, I’m with you every time.”
The judge rapped the planks with his cane. “Go on, sir! go on!” he said, violently.
Hollis went loafing on. And presently the judge caught up with him, and trotted beside him in silence.
“Well, that Paul now, as I was telling you, I don’t know what to make of him,” said Hollis, returning to his topic. “I think I know him, and then, suddenly he stumps me. Once he has made up his mind to anything—and it does not take long—off he goes and does it, I tell you! He does it.”
“I don’t know what he does; his conversation has a good deal of the sledge-hammer about it,” remarked the judge.
“So it has,” responded Hollis, delighted with the comparison; he was so delighted that he stopped and slapped his thigh. “So it has, by George!—convincing and knock-you-down.” The judge walked on. He had intended no compliment. “To-day, now, that fellow has gone and sent off a letter that he ought to have taken six months to think over,” Hollis continued. “Told you about his Clay County iron?”
“No.”
“Well, he was down there on business—in Clay County. It was several years ago. He had to go across the country, and the roads were awful—full of slew-holes. At last, tired of being joggled to pieces, he got out and walked along the fields, leaving the horse to bring the buggy through the mud as well as he could. By-and-by he saw a stone that didn’t look quite like the others, and he gave it a kick. Still it didn’t look quite like, so he picked it up. The long and short of it was that it turned out to be hematite iron, and off he went to the county-seat and entered as much of the land as he could afford to buy. He hasn’t any capital, so he has never been able to work it himself; all his savings he has invested in something or other in South America. But the other day he had a tip-top offer from a company; they wanted to buy the whole thing in a lump. And that’s the chance he has refused this identical morning!” The judge did not reply. “More iron may be discovered near by, you know,” Hollis went on, warningly, his forefinger out. His companion still remained silent. “He may never have half so good an offer in his whole life again!”