"Yes," said the judge, swiftly--"yes, I know!"
"And what am I to do?" said Trescott, his eyes suddenly lighting like
an outburst from smouldering peat. "What am I to do? He gave himself
for--for Jimmie. What am I to do for him?"
The judge abased himself completely before these words. He lowered his
eyes for a moment. He picked at his cucumbers.
Presently he braced himself straightly in his chair. "He will be your
creation, you understand. He is purely your creation. Nature has very
evidently given him up. He is dead. You are restoring him to life. You
are making him, and he will be a monster, and with no mind.
"He will be what you like, judge," cried Trescott, in sudden, polite
fury. "He will be anything, but, by God! he saved my boy."
The judge interrupted in a voice trembling with emotion: "Trescott!
Trescott! Don't I know?"
Trescott had subsided to a sullen mood. "Yes, you know," he answered,
acidly; "but you don't know all about your own boy being saved from
death." This was a perfectly childish allusion to the judge's
bachelorhood. Trescott knew that the remark was infantile, but he
seemed to take desperate delight in it.
But it passed the judge completely. It was not his spot.
"I am puzzled," said he, in profound thought. "I don't know what to
say."
Trescott had become repentant. "Don't think I don't appreciate what
you say, judge. But--"
"Of course!" responded the judge, quickly. "Of course."
"It--" began Trescott.
"Of course," said the judge.
In silence they resumed their dinner.
"Well," said the judge, ultimately, "it is hard for a man to know what
to do."
"It is," said the doctor, fervidly.
There was another silence. It was broken by the judge:
"Look here, Trescott; I don't want you to think--"
"No, certainly not," answered the doctor, earnestly.
"Well, I don't want you to think I would say anything to--It
was only that I thought that I might be able to suggest to you
that--perhaps--the affair was a little dubious."
With an appearance of suddenly disclosing his real mental
perturbation, the doctor said: "Well, what would you do? Would you
kill him?" he asked, abruptly and sternly.
"Trescott, you fool," said the old man, gently.
"Oh, well, I know, judge, but then--" He turned red, and spoke with
new violence: "Say, he saved my boy--do you see? He saved my boy."
"You bet he did," cried the judge, with enthusiasm. "You bet he did."
And they remained for a time gazing at each other, their faces
illuminated with memories of a certain deed.
After another silence, the judge said, "It is hard for a man to know
what to do."