There was a knock on the door and he lifted an irritated voice: “Come in!”
The door opened cautiously, and under the smiling Justice in her flowing robes a little boy was standing, freckle-faced, blue-eyed, black-haired, in the rusty green of the messenger’s uniform. Behind him the judge could see the worried face of old Martin, the clerk of the court.
“I couldn’t do anything with him at all, Your Honour. I told him you were busy, and I told him you were engaged, and I told him you’d given positive orders not to be disturbed, and all he’d say was, ‘I swore I’d give it into his hands, and into his hands it goes, if I stay in this place until the moon goes down and the sun comes up.’ ”
“And that’s what I promised,” said the small creature at the door in a squeak of terrified obstinacy. “And that’s what I’ll do. No matter what——”
“All right, all right, put it down there and be off.” The judge’s voice was not too long-suffering.
“Into his hands is what I said, and into his hands——”
The judge stretched out one fine lean hand with a smile that warmed his cold face like a fire. The other hand went to his pocket. “Here, if you keep on being an honourable nuisance, you may have a career ahead of you. Good-night, Martin; show the young gentleman to the door. If any one else disturbs me to-night, he’s fired.”
“Oh, by all means, Your Honour. Good-night, Your Honour.”
The door closed reverently, and His Honour stood staring absently down at the letter in his hand, the smile still in his eyes. A fat, a plethoric, an apoplectic letter; three red seals on the flap of the envelope flaunted themselves at him importantly. He turned it over carelessly. The clear, delicate, vigorous writing greeted him like a challenge:
“Judge Carver.
“To be delivered to him personally without fail.”