Judge Fulsom grunted, as he leveled a displeased stare upon the speaker, a young farmer with a bibulous eye and slight swagger of defiance. At the proper moment, with the right audience, the Judge was willing to impart information with lavish generosity. But any attempt to force his hand was looked upon as a distinct infringement of his privilege. “You want to keep your face shut, Lute, till th’ Jedge gets ready to talk,” counseled a middle-aged man who sat tilted back in the next chair. “Set down, son, and cool off.” “Well, you see I got to hurry along,” objected the young farmer impatiently, “and I wanted to know if there was anything in it. Our folks had money in the old bank, an’ we’d give up getting anything more out the smash years ago. But if the Bolton place has actually been sold—” He finished with a prolonged whistle. The greatness in the middle chair emitted a grunt. “Humph!” he muttered, and again, “Hr-m-m-ph!” “It would be surprising,” conceded the middle-aged man, “after all these years.” “Considerable many of th’ creditors has died since,” piped up a lean youth who was smoking a very large cigar. “I s’pose th’ children of all such would come in for their share—eh, Judge?” Judge Fulsom frowned and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “The proceedings has not yet reached the point you mention, Henry,” he said. “You’re going a little too fast.” Nobody spoke, but the growing excitement took the form of a shuffling of feet. The Judge deliberately lighted his pipe, a token of mental relaxation. Then from out the haze of blue smoke, like the voice of an oracle from the seclusion of a shrine, issued the familiar recitative tone for which everybody had been waiting. “Well, boys, I’ll tell you how ’twas: Along about ten minutes of twelve I had my hat on my head, and was just drawing on my linen duster with the idea of going home to dinner, when I happened to look out of my office window, and there was Deacon Whittle—and the girl, just coming up th’ steps. In five minutes more I’d have been gone, most likely for the day.” “Gosh!” breathed the excitable young farmer. The middle-aged man sternly motioned him to keep silence. “I s’pose most of you boys saw her at the fair last night,” proceeded the Judge, ignoring the interruption. “She’s a nice appearing young female; but nobody’d think to look at her—” He paused to ram down the tobacco in the glowing bowl of his pipe. “Well, as I was saying, she’d been over to the Bolton house with the Deacon. Guess we’ll have to set the Deacon down for a right smart real-estate boomer. We didn’t none of us give him credit for it. He’d got the girl all worked up to th’ point of bein’ afraid another party’d be right along to buy the place. She wanted an option on it.” “Shucks!” again interrupted the young farmer disgustedly. “Them options ain’t no good. I had one once on five acres of timber, and—” “Shut up, Lute!” came in low chorus from the spell-bound audience.