IN THE JUDGE’S CHAMBER
Jim was the first one at the training table the next morning and the
first one away, and it wasn’t much after half-past eight when he
emerged from Haylow and made his way across the campus. Under one
arm he carried his football. At West street he turned to the left
and, about a third of the way along the block, turned in under a
swinging sign on which a football was portrayed. It was a prosperous
looking store whose well-filled shelves and cases and counters offered
everything in the athletic and sporting goods lines. At this time of
morning there were no customers, and the only occupant was a youth of
nineteen or twenty, a graduate of the Academy and a resident of the
town. To him Jim explained his errand.
“I bought this football here awhile back,” he stated, “and it’s never
been used any to speak of. Hasn’t even been out of my room until
to-day. You can see it’s almost like new.”
“Yes, I see, but what’s the matter with it?” The clerk was examining
the stitching frowningly.
“Nothing,” said Jim, “but I ain’t got any more use for it and I
thought maybe you could sell it again.”
“Well, I don’t know. It’s just about as good as a new one, Mr. Todd;
I’ve got you right, haven’t I? You are Todd of the Eleven, aren’t you?
I thought so. Well, as I was saying, I’d like to oblige you, but we
don’t very often have calls for second-hand footballs. I don’t suppose
we ever had, still I’ll be glad to do what I can for you. I’ll take it
on sale, Mr. Todd. It’s kind of late now, though, and the demand for
footballs is about over.”
“I wanted you to buy it from me,” said Jim. “I need the money right
away.”
“Oh! Well, I don’t see how we could do that. If Mr. Emerson was here
he might be willing to do it, but he isn’t. I don’t see much of him
at this time of the year. Guess he’s pretty busy playing football. He
telephones a couple of times a week, but he may not call up to-day.”
Jim’s disappointment showed plainly. “Well, I’ve got to have the money
this morning,” he muttered. “I--I’d sell it back to you right cheap.”
“How cheap?” asked the clerk. “You paid seven for this, didn’t you?”
“Six-thirty. I got the academy discount.”
“That’s right. Well, how much do you want for it?”
“Four,” answered Jim.
“Well, I don’t say it isn’t worth it,” said the other dubiously, “but I
guess three and a half would be the best I could get for it, if it sold
at all.”
“Three and a half?” Jim considered. “All right, I’ll take three and a
half.”
“I may get stuck on it,” said the clerk hesitantly, “but I’ll take a
chance. Mind, I’m doing this, not the store, Mr. Todd. I wouldn’t have
any right to risk the store’s money like this.”
Jim nodded. The point wasn’t important to him, and he was trying to
think of some way in which to get the other fifty cents of the four
dollars. The clerk took three dollars and a half from his pocket, handed
the sum across the counter and the transaction was completed. Jim
hurried out.
Had he passed that way half an hour later and looked in the left-hand
window he would have seen his ball prominently displayed above a card
on which was printed: “Shopworn--A Bargain at $4.50.”
Further along on the opposite side of the street was a tiny jewelry
store. On the single narrow window was printed “The Diamond Palace--I.
Kohn & Son.” Crossing the street, Jim removed his cuff-links. Whether
they were solid gold or merely plated had never interested him before,
but he hoped now that they were solid. They were, and after Mr. Kohn,
Junior, a personable youth with extremely red cheeks, a diminutive
black mustache and brilliantly shining hair smoothed back from his
forehead, had carefully satisfied himself on that point he asked
severely: “You want to sell them?”
Jim said that he did. Young Mr. Kohn shrugged, laid them back on
a rusty square of purple velvet and pushed the square toward the
customer. “We don’t buy second-hand jewelry,” he said. Jim picked up
the links. “If you want to sell those for old gold, we’ll pay you what
they’re worth.”
Jim hesitated. “How much?” he asked.
Mr. Kohn, Junior, weighed the links on a small scales, out of sight of
Jim, by the way, and replied; “A dollar and a half. They don’t weigh
quite so much, but I’ll call it a dollar and a half even.”
“They’re worth more than that,” answered Jim, remembering that there
were at least six more jewelry stores in town.
“Not for old gold they ain’t.”
“Well, I guess I don’t want to sell them,” said Jim.
“How much you think they’re worth?” asked the other, still keeping the
cuff-links.
“Two dollars.”
“You’re making fun of me,” answered the other, smiling patiently.
“I ain’t saying they ain’t worth two dollars to you for cuff-links,
because maybe they’d be worth three, but for old gold--”
“All right,” replied Jim, holding out his hand.
“Say, ain’t you one of the fellows that plays with the football team
over to the Academy?” asked young Mr. Kohn.
“Yes.”
“Sure! I recognized you when I see you coming in the door. You was
playing in that game last week, wasn’t you? Sure! Well, now, listen,
to you I’ll say a dollar and seventy-five cents. If papa was here he’d
skin me, but I’m a great feller for football, and--”
Jim was pointing through the top of the case to a pair of cheap
imitation gold cuff-links fixed in a small card. “I’ll let you have
them for a dollar, seventy-five and those links there.”
“I couldn’t, positively!” Mr. Kohn, Junior, extracted the links in
question from the tray and read the cryptic figures on a corner of the
soiled card. “Say, you know what these sell for. Sixty-five cents! Look
for yourself!”
“‘g n l’” read Jim. “That don’t spell sixty-five to me; it spells
twenty-five.”
Perhaps Mr. Kohn, Junior, was not without a sense of humor, for he
chuckled quite humanly, hesitated a moment and finally turned to a
huge safe at the back of the narrow shop. “Say, you got a cheek, ain’t
you?” he asked almost approvingly. “I got to give you that. I guess you
football fellers is great bluffers maybe.” He counted out a dollar and
seventy-five cents. “There you are, Mister. Call again. Good morning.”
Jim took the money and the awful cuff-links and departed. After he
had gone young Mr. Kohn rubbed his purchase diligently with a soiled
chamois, fixed them to a card, wrote “l d b” in a corner and placed
them on a glass shelf. In the obscure code of the Diamond Palace “l d
b” signified that the article was to be disposed of for five dollars.
As, however, the proprietors permitted themselves the privilege of
reducing their goods twenty per centum below the marked prices to
secure a sale it was possible that Jim’s cuff-links might some day go
for as little as four dollars.
On his way to the Police Station Jim put his new purchases in place
and felt vastly more comfortable. The Captain was not in, but the
stout Sergeant served as well and conducted Jim up a broad flight of
much-worn steps to the second floor of the building. Facing the top of
the staircase, a wide portal, its double doors swung open, showed the
court room in possession of a few loungers and a clerk busily at work
under the judge’s desk. Jim, however, was conducted past the doorway
and to a smaller door at the end of the hall. The Sergeant knocked,
received no answer and looked in.
“He ain’t come yet. You set down, kid, and make yourself comfortable.
He’ll be along in a minute or two.”
The Sergeant left him and Jim took one of the several severe-looking
chairs and waited. He didn’t have to wait long, for presently brisk
steps sounded on stairs and corridor and a middle-aged man in a
closely-fitting suit of small gray checks and a bright red necktie
swung through the doorway. Jim arose. The Judge grunted, dropped a
bag on the desk, placed a morning paper atop, hung his derby hat in
a wardrobe, sank into a swivel chair and lighted a cigar. All these
things were done very briskly, so that Jim was on his feet less than a
minute before the Judge waved him back to it.
“Want to see me?” asked the Judge in an accusing voice.
“Yes, sir, if you please.” Jim wondered if he should have said “Your
Honor.” But if he had failed in respect the Judge let it pass. He
shifted his cigar so that the smoke allowed him a view of the visitor
and, after a longing glance at the newspaper, crossed one plump knee
over the other.
“What about?”
“About one of the--the prisoners, sir.”
“Coming before me this morning?”
“Yes, sir, so the Police Captain said, and he said I could see you
before court began and tell you about him. You see, Judge, Webb is all
right, only--”
“What’s his name?”
“Webb Todd, but he called himself Webster when they arrested him.”
“Gave an assumed name, eh? What’s he charged with?”
“Vagrancy, sir.”
“That all?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, there have been too many vagrants around here lately, and I
guess it’s about time some of them were made examples of. What do you
know about this Webster?”
So Jim, beginning rather timorously but soon forgetting his awe of the
listener, said his say. He made Webb out rather a fine character, and
once or twice the Judge’s cigar trembled in his mouth and the Judge’s
keen gray eyes, which weren’t really half so steel-like as he tried to
make them, softened. Jim told how Webb had taught him to swim and pull
an oar and use a paddle and had, in short, looked after him like an
elder brother for so many years. And he told how Webb had dived into
icy water that time when Jim had gone beneath the logs and had saved
his life. Now and then the Judge asked a question, and one of them was
“What’s your name?” and another was “You’re the boy they call ‘Slim’
Todd, aren’t you?” And finally, to Jim’s utter surprise, he and the
Judge were talking football!
The Judge knew football, too. There wasn’t any doubt as to that. He
had played it in school and college, and, although that had been a
good twenty years before, he still followed the game and was an ardent
“fan”; and traveled many miles each November to see his college meet
its ancient rival. He hadn’t missed an Alton game so far this season,
he told Jim, but he didn’t believe he’d be able to make the trip to New
Falmouth this afternoon. Then he asked if Jim was going to play, and
Jim said he expected to, and the Judge sighed and pushed his newspaper
aside and made finger spots on the polished mahogany surface of the
desk and moved his hands hither and yon and explained to Jim in detail
the way in which he had got away around the enemy’s right on a certain
blustery afternoon many years ago and sped twenty-six yards for the
touchdown that had won the game. And Jim, watching and listening, saw
the picture clearly and said “_Gee!_” once or twice with bated breath
and sighed with vast relief when the Judge--only, of course, he wasn’t
the Judge then--tore loose from the last tackler and fell across the
blurred white line!
Then there was a knock on the door that led to the court room and the
Judge straightened himself back in his chair and looked very judge-like
on the instant. When the Clerk entered the Judge shook hands with Jim
and walked to the corridor door with him. “I’m glad to have met you,
Mr. Todd,” he said in his best judicial tones. “Good morning.” But the
Judge’s hand pressed Jim’s very hard, and so Jim found courage to ask
before the door closed behind them: “And about--about Webb, sir? You’ll
be easy with him, sir?”
“My boy,” answered the Judge, looking just a bit pompous and severe,
“his case will be judged absolutely on its merits. I can say no more
than that.”
After which, while the Clerk of the Court coughed deprecatively in
token that the Judge was due on the bench, the Judge’s right eye-lid,
without in the least altering the expression of his face, closed slowly
down over the steel-gray eye.
Comforted, indeed rather happier than he had been since yesterday
afternoon, Jim passed into the court room and took a seat at the rear.
The rest of the audience counted no more than two dozen. Jim had never
been in any sort of a court before, and he was a little disappointed
at the almost casual way in which the cases were disposed of. But the
offenses were all minor ones and so probably deserved little ceremony.
The Judge--strangely enough, Jim didn’t yet know his name--sat very
straight behind his desk and looked unemotionally stern and gave his
verdicts in crisp, terse words. Jim began to be a little uneasy. It
seemed to him that the Judge was absolutely unable to say “Discharged”!
Instead, it was “Ten days in jail” or “You are fined fifty dollars”
or “Sentenced to thirty days: sentence suspended.” The prisoners were
a dejected looking lot until Webb Todd stood up in his turn. Webb was
perhaps more rumpled and seedy-looking than his predecessors, but there
were no signs of dejection about him. Indeed he had a rather jaunty air
as he faced the Judge, in spite of his unshaven face and cheap, skimpy,
frayed clothes. The Judge viewed him keenly and at greater length than
usual. The charge was read.
“What have you got to say for yourself, Webster?” asked the Judge.
“Not much, your Honor,” Webb answered easily. “Just that I ain’t
guilty. I’ve been here three or four days looking for work, but I ain’t
a vagrant.”
“Where did you work last?”
“Manchester, New Hampshire, sir.”
“How long ago?”
“About a month. Nearly five weeks.”
“How did you happen to come here?”
“I was going to Norwalk. I got a job promised me in Norwalk. I got out
of money and I had a friend here and I stopped to make a touch.”
“Succeed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“Before that?” The Judge’s eyes bored hard. Webb stroked his chin.
“A couple of days ago, sir.”
“Why didn’t you go to Norwalk when you got the first money from this
friend?”
“I--I guess I felt lazy,” said Webb. He smiled engagingly, and the
Judge frowned.
“Where’s your home?”
“New York City.”
“Ever been in Maine?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Four Lakes?”
Jim could see the sudden stiffening of Webb’s thin form at the far end
of the room. “Yes, sir,” answered Webb after a moment.
“As a matter of fact, Webster, that’s your home, isn’t it?”
“It used to be, Judge. I--I guess I ain’t got any now.”
The Judge stared intently at Webb for a long while across the desk,
and, to his credit be it said, Webb returned the look unflinchingly.
“If I let you off, Webster, will you promise me to leave this town
before night and secure work inside of twenty-four hours?”
“I’ll say so, Judge.”
“Think you can secure work?”
“I know it.”
The Judge leaned back. “Discharged,” he said. “Next case.”
Jim followed Webb into the corridor and went down stairs with him.
“Gee, I’m awfully glad, Webb!” he said.
“Pshaw, he didn’t have nothin’ on me, kid. What did I tell you? But,
say, I forgot about you seeing him, and when he asked me about Four
Lakes I got a swell jar! Did you bring the money, kid?”
“Yes. You get what they took away from you, Webb, and we’ll trade.”
Webb didn’t seem enthusiastic about that, but he disappeared and after
a few minutes returned with his possessions. “Fifteen dollars,” he
said, offering Jim three five-dollar coins.
“Sixteen, forty-one,” said Jim implacably. Webb sighed, grinned and
found the balance.
“Gee, kid, you’re a regular Shylock, ain’t you?”
“This isn’t my money, Webb. Remember that I’ve got to pay back the
difference, too.”
“That’s right. Say, I’m sorry, kid, honest I am. I ain’t used you
right, and I know it. Comin’ along to the railway station with me?”
“No,” answered Jim. “I haven’t time, Webb. Here’s five dollars. You’ll
be able to eat for a few days if you don’t get that job right off.”
“Kid, you’re a prince! But I’ll get the job, all right. And say, this
ain’t any promise, ’cause I ain’t good at keeping promises, but maybe
I’ll be sending you that money back before long.”
“I hope you will,” replied Jim soberly. “Anyway, I’ll be expecting you
to, Webb, for you really owe it to me, you know.”
“Help!” said Webb. “Well, that’s right, too. So long, kid. See you
again some day likely.”
They shook hands; they were at the corner now; and Jim said: “You’ll
keep your promise, won’t you, Webb? I mean you’ll really go to Norwalk
and get work.”
“Take it from me, kid,” answered Webb, grinning, “it ain’t going to be
healthy for me in this town after to-day. That Judge back there’s a
hard-boiled egg, or I miss my guess! So long, kid!”