“I should like to be taken to see them,” said Farquhar, reflectively. “I should like to have a look at Big Tom De Willoughby.”
“Would you?” cried the Judge. “Why, nothing would suit me better—or them either, for that matter. I’ll take you any day you say—any day.”
“It ain’t the easiest thing in the world to put a claim through,” said Farquhar. “It means plenty of hard knocks and hard work and anxiety. Do you know that?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” answered the Judge. “But I’m going to get this one through if there’s a way of doing it.”
“You’ll be misunderstood and called names and slandered,” said Farquhar, regarding his rugged, ingenuous face with some curiosity. “There may be people—even in Hamlin County—who won’t believe you are not up to some big deal. What are you doing it for?”
“Why, for Tom and Sheba and Rupert,” said the Judge, in an outburst of neighbourliness. “That’s folks enough to do it for, ain’t it? There’s three of ’em—and I’d do it for ary one—as we say in Barnesville,” in discreet correction of the colloquialism.
Farquhar laughed a little, and put a hand on his shoulder as they moved away together. “I believe you would,” he said; “perhaps that sort of thing is commoner in Barnesville than in Washington. I believe you would. Take me to see the claimants to-morrow.”