I don’t know in just what condition I had been expecting to find the judge, and I had not planned how I would act when I met him, but I know mighty well I had not calculated on the sort of meeting we did have.
I found him just as I had found him in times past when we had had a word or so together—and that was my surprise that day!
I would not have been much astonished if he had fallen on my neck and sobbed out his gratitude; I rather looked for some demonstration. To find him the same old, cold, stiff ramrod was outside all my anticipations. I went in meekly and sat down.
“In the matter of the wood-lot,” he said, perfectly at ease and putting that jew’s-harp twang in his nose. “I have looked the contracts over. Young man, I don’t know whether to compliment you as one of the smartest business men I have ever met, or to have you arrested for an attempt at grand larceny!”
I did not know what to say to that, and sat and fiddled my finger across the brim of my plug-hat.
He put out his hand. “Please allow me to look at that receipt I gave you.”
I handed it over—obedient as a pup. He read it and tore it up.
“It is as irregular a document as your operations have been irregular. I will give you a deed, taking back your note and a mortgage—”
“But I want no deed, sir. I said so to you last evening. I don’t want the land. You keep it.”
He gave me a chilly stare. “My price of two thousand dollars was on the lot—not merely the wood on the lot. The land will be yours when we have passed our papers. I don’t know why I should place myself under obligations to you by any such foolish child’s play as you suggest.” Say, I felt myself slipping out of the Kingsley family circle as if I were going down a cellar slide in a puddle of soft soap. I made a desperate clutch.