For once Judge Priest forgot his manners. He uttered not a syllable, but only stared through his spectacles in stunned and stricken silence while Mr. Curd passed out into the hallway, gently closing the door behind him. Then Judge Priest vented his emotions in a series of snorts.
In modern drama what is technically known as the stage aside has gone out of vogue; it is called old-fashioned. Had a latter-day playwright been there then, he would have resented the judge's thoughtlessness in addressing empty space. Nevertheless that was exactly what the judge did.
“Under the strict letter of the law I ought to throw that case out of court, I s'pose. But I'm teetotally dam' ef I do any sech thing!... That old man's heart is broke now, and there ain't no earthly reason that I kin think of why that she-devil should be allowed to tromp on the pieces. And that's jest exactly whut she'll do, shore ez shootin', unless she's let free mighty soon to go her own gait.... Their feet take hold on hell.... I'll bet in the Kingdom there'll be many a man that was called a simple-minded fool on this earth that'll wear the biggest, shiniest halo old Peter kin find in stock.”
He reached for the Trigger Sam book, but put it back again in the drawer. He reached into a gaping side pocket of his coat for his corncob pipe, but forgot to charge the fire-blackened bowl from the tobacco cannister that stood handily upon his desk. Chewing hard upon the discoloured cane stem of his pipe, he projected himself toward the back room and opened the door, to find Mr. Milam, the circuit clerk, and Mr. Birdsong, the sheriff, still engaged together in official duties there.
“Lishy,” he said from the doorway, “young Rawlings generally gits round here about two o'clock in the evenin', don't he?”
“Generally about two or two-thirty,” said Mr. Milam.
“I thought so. Well, to-day when he comes tell him, please, I want to see him a minute in my chambers.”
“What if you're not here? Couldn't I give him the message?”
“I'll be here,” promised the judge. “And there's one thing more: Bigger & Quigley will file a divorce petition to-day—Curd versus Curd is the title of the suit. Put it at the head of the list of undefended actions, please, Lishy, ez near the top of the docket ez you kin.”
“Curd? Is it the Lysander Curds, Judge?”, asked Mr. Milam.