Judge Kingsley rushed out with a horsewhip and lashed us apart just as I
was finishing Ben up.
“Young Sidney, you’re a cheeky, tough, brazen character,” said the
judge. I did not answer him.
It is my nature to take a big lot from all women, considerable from some
men, and devilish little from most men. I had nothing at all to say
to Celene Kingsley’s father, even though I was rubbing half a dozen
swelling welts where his whip had connected with the back of my neck.
“You come of a tough family,” stated the judge.
Right then my uncle Deck arrived at the party; he had been watching the
thing from the tavern porch.
“What’s that you say about our family?” he asked the judge.
“I don’t care to stand here and quarrel with you, Decker Sidney.”
“When you horsewhip my dead brother’s boy in the main street you’ll
come pretty nigh to having a quarrel with me, seeing that his own father
can’t protect him.”
“I merely came out here and stopped a fight which was disgracing our
village.”
“It’s a nice thing for one of the ‘forty thieves’ to talk about
disgracing a village,” said my uncle.
As young as I was I knew what was meant when folks called Judge Kinglsey
one of the forty thieves. He belonged to the syndicate that had grabbed
the State’s principal railroad away from the original shareholders;
there was political shenanigan and a good deal of foreclosure trickery.
I never understood the details, but the fact remained that the syndicate
got the railroad.
“A cheap slur from a cheap man,” said the judge, walking away.
I can’t say that I resented that remark very deeply, though I suppose
family loyalty should have prompted me to do so. I never in my life came
close to my uncle Deck when he did not have the smell of liquor on his
breath: On each side of his nose there was a patch of perfectly lurid
crimson. He was a horse-trader and he made considerable money.
“That slur of _yours_ is a high-priced one,” my uncle shouted. “I have
my eye on you, you old hypocrite. There’ll come a day when that slur
will cost you more than you can afford to pay. That’s how high-priced it
is, Judge Kingsley.”