CHAPTER XVII
A GOOD NAME
The Judge had come in to dinner in a bad temper. For one thing he had been badly beaten at golf by a man who could not speak good English. This thing seemed to the Judge insufferable, a thing that should not be allowed. Fancy being beaten by the long drives and careful calculation of a hooked-nose oaf who shambled in his walk and said "acrost" and "bee-hind" and "I was to New York."
The Judge was beginning to feel his age in many ways. His complete absorption in his calling made him sometimes aghast at how differently life went from what he stipulated. A nightmarish sense of suddenly awaking in an unfamiliar milieu, in surroundings peopled with beings he did not understand, who did nothing he had willed, oppressed him.
The very weather was more progressive than the Judge wanted it to be. The late June, lush and rich with vegetation, seemed to impinge on his conception of a world neatly outlined in flower borders and garden paths. The weeds around his rose gardens had accumulated! Colter had not yet removed them. The man was clearly a shirker, endeavoring to impress people with his superiority to work. Where was he at this moment? The Judge had not been able to locate him on the place. Then the whole attitude of the immediate world toward the Terence O'Brien affair affected the Judge. "In the good old days," thought that gentleman, "men committed crime and we hung 'em and that was the end of it. Nowadays a man does wrong, and what happens? First, the women all over the country begin howling; then the newspapers run amuck because some smart politician sees capital in it; then the fool letter writers, E Pluribus Unum, Veritas, and Uncle Felix, begin gassing; then some lawyer sees a chance for notoriety and takes the defense, first thing you know"—the Judge was almost awed at it,—"the Bench itself, the Bench itself, is put into the wrong!"
Miss Aurelia, amid accustomed twitters about hot water, the instability of cooking gas, the fact that the cream wasn't good and her other daily anguishes, yet found time for soft demurring.
"But Mr. Shipman, brother, surely he couldn't need notoriety. Why he—they—I remember the Ledyard affair. Mr. Shipman got George Ledyard completely exonerated, at least it was said so, though he did commit suicide afterward. The thing ran through the country like wild-fire. Mr. Shipman must be very well known. Not that I quite understand, but there was a famous scientist, brother to Mr. Ledyard, I believe, whom they scoured the country for——"
The Judge moved prohibitively and Miss Aurelia ran down. "Women's clack," came the judicial sentence on her remarks. "Women's clack, Shipman's game is to take some mucker and put him on top; it gets him well known and keeps the people for him. He'll run for something some day. Don't like the man, never did." The Judge, having passed sentence on Shipman, looked around in a manner of swelled grandeur. Then his hard-boiled eyes becoming suddenly conscious of the two empty seats at the table, he asked abruptly, "Where are the girls? Hey? What? What did you say? Where are they?"