“About your Lem boy,” he said, “there ain't goin' to be no trouble. To my notion we ain't got a better citizen in town than Sam Cantor, if he is a Jew. He sells good clothes and if they ain't satisfactory he hands you your money back, and no fussin'. Now, this here old pair of pants I got on—well, no matter. He comes up to my justice shop this momin' and he handed me one of the best seegars I ever stuck in my face. 'Judge,' he says, 'how are them pants wearin'?' 'All right, Sam,' I says. 'Don't look so to me,' he says; 'looks to me like you ain't gettin' good wear out of 'em. You better come around tomorrow and let me fit you to a new pair, or I won't lay easy in my grave.' 'Let me see!' I says, 'a new pair of pants is worth about six dollars, Sam. Who's hopin' to get let off from about a twenty-dollar fine?' That's how I talk to Sam Cantor!”
He cackled again gleefully.
“But I thought it was Moses Shuder brought the charges against Harve Redding and the boys,” said Carter Bruce. “Is n't Shuder a protégé of Cantor's?”
“That's it,” said Bruce. “That's the nub of it, right there. 'Judge,' Sam says, 'I'll lay my cards right on the table. You know my friend Shuder and the rest of the long beards ain't any too popular around here yet, and you know it was me that started the move to raise money to fetch them from Russia or Poland or wherever it was they was. If old Dod-Baste and them three boys gets jailed or anything, them long beards is going to be more unpopular than ever. I've got to look out for Our People,' he says. 'I can't have 'em hated. I've had a talk with Mose Shuder and he's ready to lay down on his back and stick his legs in the air and yell, “Excuse me,” if you'll just wipe the slate clean.' So I give it a wipe, and that's ended. And to-morrow momin' I git a new pair of pants.”
“What would you have done to them if Mr. Cantor had not interceded, Judge Bruce?” asked Gay.
The old man cackled until he began to cough.
“That's the joke of it, young woman,” he said gleefully. “I was goin' to turn 'em all loose anyhow. Maybe I might have fined Mose Shuder two dollars for disturbin' a justice of the peace; it makes me so dumb mad to have all these fool fusses fetched up before me. Why, land's goodness! If I had been sentenced six months every time I stole junk when I was a boy I'd be in jail yet!”
“But Mr. Redding received the stolen junk, did n't he?” Gay asked teasingly.
“'T wa'n't my junk, was it?” asked Judge Bruce. “And he hit Moses Shuder,” said Henrietta.
“Well, a man has got to hit somebody once in a while, ain't he?” asked the justice.