In the barroom of the Brookville House the flaring kerosene lamp lit up a group of men and half-grown boys, who had strayed in out of the chill darkness to warm themselves around the great stove in the middle of the floor. The wooden armchairs, which in summer made a forum of the tavern's side piazza, had been brought in and ranged in a wide semicircle about the stove, marking the formal opening of the winter session. In the central chair sat the large figure of Judge Fulsom, puffing clouds of smoke from a calabash pipe; his twinkling eyes looking forth over his fat, creased cheeks roved impartially about the circle of excited faces.

“I can understand all right about Andrew Bolton's turning up,” one man was saying. “He was bound to turn up sooner or later. I seen him myself, day before yesterday, going down street. Thinks I, ‘Who can that be?’ There was something kind of queer about the way he dragged his feet. What you going to do about it, Judge? Have we got to put up with having a jailbird, as crazy as a loon into the bargain, living right here in our midst?”

“In luxury and idleness, like he was a captain of industry,” drawled another man who was eating hot dog and sipping beer. “That's what strikes me kind of hard, Judge, in luxury and idleness, while the rest of us has to work.”

Judge Fulsom gave an inarticulate grunt and smoked on imperturbably.

“Set down, boys; set down,” ordered a small man in a red sweater under a corduroy coat. “Give the Jedge a chance! He ain't going to deliver no opinion whilst you boys are rammaging around. Set down and let the Jedge take th' floor.”

A general scraping of chair legs and a shuffling of uneasy feet followed this exhortation; still no word from the huge, impassive figure in the central chair. The oily-faced young man behind the bar improved the opportunity by washing a dozen or so glasses, setting them down showily on a tin tray in view of the company.

“Quit that noise, Cholley!” exhorted the small man in the red sweater; “we want order in the court room—eh, Jedge?”

“What I'd like to know is where she got all that money of hers,” piped an old man, with a mottled complexion and bleary eyes.

“Sure enough; where'd she get it?” chimed in half a dozen voices at once.

“She's Andrew Bolton's daughter,” said the first speaker. “And she's been setting up for a fine lady, doing stunts for charity. How about our town hall an' our lov-elly library, an' our be-utiful drinking fountain, and the new shingles on our church roof? You don't want to ask too many questions, Lute.”

“Don't I?” cried the man, who was eating hot dog. “You all know me! I ain't a-going to stand for no grab-game. If she's got money, it's more than likely the old fox salted it down before they ketched him. It's our money; that's whose money 'tis, if you want to know!”

And he swallowed his mouthful with a slow, menacing glance which swept the entire circle.

“Now, Lucius,” began Judge Fulsom, removing the pipe from his mouth, “go slow! No use in talk without proof.”

“But what have you got to say, Jedge? Where'd she get all that money she's been flamming about with, and that grand house, better than new, with all the latest improvements. Wa'n't we some jays to be took in like we was by a little, white-faced chit like her? Couldn't see through a grindstone with a hole in it! Bolton House.... And an automobile to fetch the old jailbird home in. Wa'n't it love-ly?”

A low growl ran around the circle.

“Durn you, Lute! Don't you see the Jedge has something to say?” demanded the man behind the bar.

Judge Fulsom slowly tapped his pipe on the arm of his chair. “If you all will keep still a second and let me speak,” he began.

“I want my rights,” interrupted a man with a hoarse crow.

“Your rights!” shouted the Judge. “You've got no right to a damned thing but a good horsewhipping!”

“I've got my rights to the money other folks are keeping, I'll let you know!”

Then the Judge fairly bellowed, as he got slowly to his feet:

“I tell you once for all, the whole damned lot of you,” he shouted, “that every man, woman and child in Brookville has been paid, compensated, remunerated and requited in full for every cent he, she or it lost in the Andrew Bolton bank failure.”

There was a snarl of dissent.

“You all better go slow, and hold your tongues, and mind your own business. Remember what I say; that girl does not owe a red cent in this town, neither does her father. She's paid in full, and you've spent a lot of it in here, too!” The Judge wiped his red face.

“Oh, come on, Jedge; you don't want to be hard on the house,” protested the man in the red sweater, waving his arms as frantically as a freight brakeman. “Say, you boys! don't ye git excited! The Jedge didn't mean that; you got him kind of het up with argufying.... Down in front, boys! You, Lute—”

But it was too late: half a dozen voices were shouting at once. There was a simultaneous descent upon the bar, with loud demands for liquor of the sort Lute Parsons filled up on. Then the raucous voice of the ringleader pierced the tumult.

“Come on, boys! Let's go out to the old place and get our rights off that gal of Bolton's!”

“That's th' stuff, Lute!” yelled the others, clashing their glasses wildly. “Come on! Come on, everybody!”

In vain Judge Fulsom hammered on the bar and called for order in the court room. The majesty of the law, as embodied in his great bulk, appeared to have lost its power. Even his faithful henchman in the red sweater had joined the rioters and was yelling wildly for his rights. Somebody flung wide the door, and the barroom emptied itself into the night, leaving the oily young man at his post of duty gazing fearfully at the purple face of Judge Fulsom, who stood staring, as if stupefied, at the overturned chairs, the broken glasses and the empty darkness outside.

“Say, Jedge, them boys was sure some excited,” ventured the bartender timidly. “You don't s'pose—”

The big man put himself slowly into motion.

“I'll get th' constable,” he growled. “I—I'll run 'em in; and I'll give Lute Parsons the full extent of the law, if it's the last thing I do on earth. I—I'll teach them!—I'll give them all they're lookin' for.”

And he, too, went out, leaving the door swinging in the cold wind.

At the corner, still meditating vengeance for this affront to his dignity, Judge Fulsom almost collided with the hurrying figure of a man approaching in the opposite direction.

“Hello!” he challenged sharply. “Where you goin' so fast, my friend?”

“Evening, Judge,” responded the man, giving the other a wide margin.

“Oh, it's Jim Dodge—eh? Say, Jim, did you meet any of the boys on the road?”

“What boys?”

“Why, we got into a little discussion over to the Brookville House about this Andrew Bolto............