*JUDGE ELBRIDGE*
*CHAPTER I.*
*THE STUDENT AND THE ORATOR.*
When John Elbridge retired from the bench, the newspapers said that he
had been an honorable judge. He was not a pioneer, but had come to
Chicago at a time which we now call an early day, when churches rang
their bells where now there is a jungle of trade, when the legs of the
Giant of the West were in the ache of "growing pains;" at a time when
none but the most visionary dreamed that a mud-hole full of old boots,
dead rats, cats, dogs, could ever be worth a million of dollars.
Elbridge came from Maryland, with a scant wardrobe, a lawyer's diploma,
and the confident ambition of youth. It was not long before he formed a
copartnership with a young man named Bodney, a Kentuckian, in whose mind
still lived the chimes of Henry Clay's bells--a memory that not so much
fitted him to the law as it atuned him to oratory; but in those days the
bar could be eloquent without inviting the pitying smile which means,
"Oh, yes, it sounds all right, but it's crude." Elbridge was the
student of the firm, and Bodney the orator, not a bad combination in the
law at that time, for what one did not know the other was prepared to
assert. They prospered in a way, but never had the forethought to
invest in the magic mud-hole; took wives unto themselves, and, in the
opinion of the "orator," settled down to dull and uneventful honesty.
The years, like racing horses, flew round and round the track, and a
palace of trade grew out of the mud-hole. Bodney and his wife passed
away, leaving two children, a boy and a girl. Elbridge had stood at the
bedside of his partner, who was following his wife into the eternal
shadow. "Don't worry about the children, Dan; they are mine," said the
"student," and the "orator" passed away in peace. And they were his.
He took them to his home to be brother and sister to his son; and the
years raced round and round the track.
At the time of his retirement from the bench the Judge was asked why he
refused longer to serve the people. "Because," said he, "I am beginning
to be afraid of my judgment; I am becoming too careful--like the old
engineer who can't summon the nerve to bring his train in on time."
Mrs. Elbridge had been known as a local "beauty." It was said that the
"orator" had rung his Henry Clay bells for her hand, and with
philosophy, a rare quality among orators, had accepted defeat, to spur
himself into another contest and to win a woman not unknown to "looks."
Rachel Fry, afterward Mrs. Elbridge, had written verses to sky tints and
lake hues, and the "student" believed that he had won her with a volume
of Keats, bound in blue, the color of one of her own lake odes. And in
the reminiscent humor of his older days he was wont to laugh over it
until he himself was shot through with a metric thrill, when in measure
he strove to recall the past; and then she had the laugh on him. It may
be a mere notion, but it seems that the young doctor and the old lawyer
are much inclined to write verses, for among the papers of many an aged
jurist sonnets are found, and editors are well acquainted with the
beguiling smile of the young physician. So the "pink fleece of the
cloud-sheep," and the "blue, mysterious soul of the lake," inspirations
of the "beauty's" earlier years, found sympathy in the "student's"
"mellow morning of sunlit hope," penned in the late afternoon of life.
But verses, be they ever so bad, are the marks of refinement, and there
was no vulgar streak in the mind of the Judge. His weakness, and he
possessed more than one, was the doggedness with which he held to a
conviction. His mind was not at all times clear; a neighbor said that
he often found himself in a cloud of dust that arose from ancient law
books; and it is a fact that an able judge is sometimes a man of strong
prejudices. At the time of this narration he was still hale, good
humored, a little given to the pedantry of advancing years, devoted to
his family, impressive in manner, with his high forehead and thin gray
hair; firm of step, heavy in the shoulders, not much above medium
height, cleanly shaven, with full lips slightly pouting. Following his
own idea of comfort, he had planned his house, a large brick building in
Indiana Avenue, at first far out, but now within easy reach of the area
where the city's pile-driving heart beats with increasing violence. It
was a happy household. The son, Howard, was a manly fellow, studious
but wide awake, and upon him the old man rested a precious hope. The
mother was a blonde, and nature had given her cast to the boy, blue eyes
and yellowish hair; and it was said that if he had a vanity it lay in
his bronze beard, which he kept neatly trimmed--and it had come early,
this mark of the matured man. His foster brother, George Bodney, was
dark, inclined to restlessness, over-impressionable, nervous. The old
man had another precious hope--Florence, Bodney's sister; but of this he
shall tell in his own words. A stranger might not have seen anything
striking about the girl; but all acquaintances thought her handsome. At
school she had been called a "character," not that she was original to
the degree of being "queer," but because she acted in a manner
prematurely old, discussing serious questions with her teachers,
debating the problems of life. Her hobby was honor, a virtue which a
cynic has declared is more often found among boys than among girls. She
liked to read of martyrs, not that there was heaven in their faith, but
because she thought it glorious to suffer and to die for a principle, no
matter what that principle might happen to be.
There was one other member of the family, William, the Judge's brother.
He looked like a caricature of the "student," with thinner hair and
thicker lips. He had not given his energies to any one calling;
shiftless is the word best fitted to set him forth. He had lived in
different parts of the far West, had been dissatisfied with all places
because a failure in all, and had come to spend the remainder of his
days with his brother in Chicago. Here, he declared, a man could not
find disappointment, for no man of sense expected anything but
permission to breathe and to keep out of the way. Friends knew that he
was the Judge's standing joke, a family laughing stock, a humorous
burden, a necessary idleness. Of course, it was natural for him to feel
that he owned the place.
Howard and George Bodney were bred to the law, and recently had been
admitted to the bar. The "starvation period" of the average young
lawyer did not arise out of dull prospect to confront them; they were to
make their way, it was true, but they could study and wait. Howard was
ambitious, and his mind was grasping. It was said that he "gulped" a
book. He did not stop at the stern texts which were to serve as a part
of his necessary equipment, but gave himself excursions among those
graces of half-idle minds which light a torch for souls that may be
greater. He peeped into the odd corners of thought. Once he startled
his father by declaring that genius was the unconscious wisdom of
ignorance.
"It is the reflection of hard work," said the old man. The boy was the
corner-stone of his hope; he wanted to feel that his work was to go on,
generation after generation, a pardonable vanity, but a vanity
nevertheless. He wanted the boy to be practical, for a speculative
youth is not a good perpetuator of a father's career. And on one
occasion the boy was taken gently to task for reading a decadent book.
"I like to brush up against different minds," said he.
"But nothing is gained by brushing against a diseased mind."
"We might learn something from a mad dog."
"But all of value that we may learn from him," said the old man, "is to
keep out of his way. I must request you not to read such books."
Bodney had not distinguished himself. He appeared to be restless and
dissatisfied with himself and with his prospects. He thought that the
law afforded but a slow and tedious way to make money, and deplored the
shortsightedness of his father and his benefactor for not having
invested in the mud-hole. Nervousness may inspire force of character,
but it more often induces weakness. In many respects Bodney was weak.
But the Judge, who should have been a shrewd observer of men as well as
of principles, did not see it. In the "youth of old age," a man who, in
his younger days, may have been keenly of the world, sometimes turns
upon life the goggle eye of optimism.
After his retirement from the bench and the more active affairs of the
law, the Judge fitted up an office at his home, with desks, long table
covered with green baize, books and safe.
One evening Bodney sat alone in the home office, deeply brooding. The
household was at dinner, and he heard the hearty laughter of the Judge.
He was joking with a guest, a preacher, a good fellow. The young man's
brow was dark. Of late he had formed an association with a man named
Goyle, clearly an adventurer, but a man to inflame the fancy of a morbid
nature. Bodney and Goyle had been much together, at the house and at
the office down town, but no one made any objection. Personal freedom
was a hobby with the Judge.
There were two doors leading into the office, one opening into a hall,
the other into a passageway communicating directly with the street.
Through the door opening into the passage Goyle entered. He carried a
valise in his hand. Bodney looked up.
"Halloa, Goyle," said he. "Come in."
[Illustration: "Halloa, Goyle," said he. "Come in."]
"That's what I'm doing," Goyle replied, putting down the valise near the
door and advancing toward the desk at which Bodney was seated.
"Sit down," said Bodney.
"That's what I'm going to do," Goyle replied.
He sat down, and for a time both were silent. "Where's everybody?" Goyle
asked.
The bass laughter of the Judge and the contralto of a woman's mirth were
heard.
"At dinner," said Bodney, nodding toward the dining room.
"Don't you eat?"
"Sometimes," Bodney answered, and then after a short silence he asked:
"Did you get my note?"
"Yes."
"What do you think?"
"I think you're scared," said Goyle.