Bradley remained silent over by the rickety red-hot stove, warming his stiffened fingers. The Judge went on in a speculative way: "I believe I notice a tendency in the times that makes it harder for a married man to succeed than it used to be. I think, on the whole, my advice would be to keep out of it altogether. More men fail on that account, I observe, than upon any other. You see it's so infernally hard to tell what kind of a woman your girl is going to turn out." "You needn't worry about me," said Bradley a little sullenly. "That's what Mrs. Brown said. I just thought I'd say a word or two, anyway. If I've gone too far, you may kick my dog over there." Bradley looked at the sleeping dog, and back at the meditative Judge, and smiled. He sat down at his work and said no more upon the subject. XII. THE JUDGE ADVISES BRADLEY. It was at the Judge's advice that he decided to take a year at the law-school at Iowa City. He had been in the office over a year and a half, and though he had not been converted to Democracy, the Judge was still hopeful. "Oh, you'll have to come into the Democratic camp," he often said. "You see, it's like this: the Republicans are so damn proud of their record, they're going to ossify, with their faces turned backward. They have a past, but no future. Now the Democratic party has no past that it cares particularly to look back at, and so it's got to look into the future. You progressive young fellows can't afford to stand in a party where everything is all done, because that leaves nothing for you to do but to admire some dead man. You'll be forced into the party of ideas, sure. I aint disposed to hurry you, you'll come out all right when the time comes." Bradley never argued with him. He had simply shut his lips and his mind to it all. Democracy had lost some of its evil associations in his mind, however, and Free Trade and Secession no longer meant practically the same thing, as it used to do. "Now people are damn fools--excepting you an' me, of course," yawned the Judge, one day in midsummer. "What you want to do is to take a couple of years at Iowa City and then come back here and jump right into the political arena and toot your horn. They'll elect you twice as quick if you come back here with a high collar and a plug-hat, even these grangers. They distrust a man in 'hodden gray'--no sort of doubt of it. Now you take my advice. People like to be pollygoggled by a sleek suit of clothes. And then, there is nothing that impresses people with a man's immense accumulation of learning and dignity like a judicious spell of absence." It was very warm, and they both sat with coats and vests laid aside. The fat old bull-dog was panting convulsively from the exertion of having just climbed the stairs. The Judge went on, after looking affectionately at the dog: