“Are you connected with this institution, suh?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the man shortly, but slowing his gait.
“So I judged from your manner and deportment, suh,” said the judge. “I'm lookin',” he went on, “for your proprietor.”
“Silver? He's over yonder by the cookhouse.”
“The which?” asked the judge.
“The cookhouse—the dining tent,” explained the other, pointing. “Right round yonder beyond that second stake wagon—where you see smoke rising. But he's likely to be pretty busy.”
Behind the second stake wagon the judge found a blocky, authoritative man, with a brown derby hat tilted back on his head and heavy-lidded eyes like a frog's, and knew him at once for the owner; but one look at the face made the judge hesitate. He felt that his was a lost cause already; and then the other opened his mouth and spoke, and Judge Priest turned on his heel and came away. The judge was reasonably well seasoned to sounds of ordinary profanity, but not to blasphemy that seemed to loose an evil black smudge upon the clean air. He came back to the buggy and climbed in.
“See your man?” asked Settle.
“Yes,” said the judge slowly, “I saw him.”
Especially downtown things had a holidaying look to them. Wall-eyed teams of country horses were tethered to hitching-racks in the short by-streets, flinching their flanks and setting themselves for abortive stampedes later on. Pedlers of toy balloons circulated; a vender with a fascinating line of patter sold to the same customers, in rapid succession, odorous hamburger and flat slabs of a heat-resisting variety of striped ice cream. At a main crossing, catercornered across from each other, the highpitch man and his brother of the flat joint were at work, one selling electric belts from the back of a buggy, the other down in the dust manipulating a spindle game. The same group of shillabers were constantly circulating from one faker to the other, and as constantly investing. Even the clerks couldn't stay inside the stores—they kept darting out and darting back in again. A group of darkies would find a desirable point of observation along the sidewalk and hold it for a minute or two, and then on a sudden unaccountable impulse would desert it and go streaking off down the middle of the street to find another that was in no way better. In front of the wagon yard country rigs were parked three deep. Every small boy who wasn't at the showground was swarming round underfoot somewhere, filled with a most delicious nervousness that kept him moving. But Judge Priest, who would have joyed in these things ordinarily, had an absent eye for it all. There was another picture persisting in his mind, a picture with a little brown house and a ragged catalpa tree for a background.