“If that’s the way you feel about it, Judge Kingsley,” I said, straightening up, “I’ll bid you good evening. After you have tucked your three thousand in your jeans, send me a bill for damages and I’ll settle.”
He called me back before I had taken many steps.
“My head isn’t right,” he mumbled. “I have been having much trouble. What have you been telling me?”
I went over the thing again, very patiently, for I saw I was dealing with a case which was more serious than I thought. The night was on us by that time. I tore strips of birch bark from a tree, lighted them one by one, and made a torch so that he could examine one of the contracts. Again I insisted that he must cake the whole thing over profits and all.
“I had no right to start in on your property as I did, Judge Kingsley. So I’ll fine myself a thousand!”
“I think I ought to call you honest, young man,” he said, after a time. “I have hard work to believe that any man is honest in this world just now, but what you say sounds honest. I’ll meet you half-way in your honesty.”
He asked me to hold more torches. He found a sheet of letter-paper in his wallet, bearing his name printed at the top. He wrote a receipt for two thousand dollars, using the long wallet for his desk.
“I have dated it four days back. Now that I have met you half-way in one matter, young man, I ask you to meet me half-way in another. When you get that, money in hand, pay it to my wife. Do not tell anybody that you did not pay it to me.” He hesitated a moment. “As to the land—the deed—”
“I have no use for the land, Judge Kingsley. So there’s no call for a deed.”
“I think you are honest, young man. I believe I can trust you to give the money to my wife—and say nothing about it outside!”