The Citizens’ Club had held two meetings, and Horace felt that the manner in which he had presided and directed the course of action at these gatherings had increased his hold upon the town. Nearly fifty men had now joined the club, and next month they were to discuss the question of a permanent habitation. They all seemed to like him as president, and nebulous thoughts about being the first mayor of Thessaly, when the village should get its charter, now occasionally floated across the young man’s mind.
He had called at the Minster house on each Tuesday since that conversation with Miss Kate, and now felt himself to be on terms almost intimate with the whole household. He could not say, even to himself, that his suit had progressed much; but Miss Kate seemed to like him, and her mother, whom he also had seen at other times on matters of business, was very friendly indeed.
Thus affairs stood with the rising young lawyer at the beginning of March, when he one day received a note sent across by hand from Mr. Tenney, asking him to come over at once to the Dearborn House, and meet him in a certain room designated by number.
Horace was conscious of some passing surprise that Tenney should make appointments in private rooms of the local hotel, but as he crossed the street to the old tavern and climbed the stairs to the apartment named, it did not occur to him that the summons might signify that the crisis which had darkened the first weeks of February was come again.
He found Tenney awaiting him at the door, and after he had perfunctorily shaken hands with him, discovered that there was another man inside, seated at the table in the centre of the parlor, under the chandelier. This man was past middle-age, and both his hair and the thick, short beard which covered his chin and throat were nearly white. Horace noted first that his long upper lip was shaven, and this grated upon him afresh as one of the least lovely of provincial American customs. Then he observed that this man had eyes like Tenney’s in expression, though they were blue instead of gray; and as this resemblance came to him, Tenney spoke:
“Judge Wendover, this is the young man we’ve been talking about—Mr. Horace Boyce, son of my partner, the General, you know.”
The mysterious New Yorker had at last appeared on the scene, then. He did not look very mysterious, or very metropolitan either, as he rose slowly and reached his hand across the table for Horace to shake. It was a fat and inert hand, and the Judge himself, now that he stood up, was seen to be also fat and dumpy in figure, with a bald head, noticeably high at the back of the skull, and a loose, badly fitted suit of clothes.
“Sit down,” he said to Horace, much as if that young man had been a stenographer called in to report a conversation. Horace took the chair indicated, not over pleased.
“I haven’t got much time,” the Judge continued, speaking apparently to the papers in front of him. “There’s a good deal to do, and I’ve got to catch that 5.22 train.”
“New Yorkers generally do have to catch trains,” remarked Horace. “So far as I could see, the few times I’ve been there of late years, that is always the chief thing on their minds.”