He wore a black alpaca coat that slanted upon him in deep, longitudinal folds, and the front skirts of it were twisted and pulled downward until they dangled in long, wrinkly black teats. His shapeless gray trousers were short for him and fitted his pudgy legs closely. Below them dangled a pair of stout ankles encased in white cotton socks and ending in low-quarter black shoes. His shirt was clean but wrinkled countlessly over his front. The gnawed and blackened end of a cane pipestem stood out of his breast pocket, rising like a frosted weed stalk. He settled himself back in the capacious oak chair, balanced upon his knees a white straw hat with a string band round the crown and waited for the question. “What is your name?” asked Durham. “William Pitman Priest.” Even the voice somehow seemed to fit the setting. Its high nasal note had a sort of whimsical appeal to it. “When and where were you born?” “In Calloway County, Kintucky, July 27, 1889.” “What is your profession or business?” “I am an attorney-at-law.” “What position if any do you hold in your native state?” “I am presidin' judge of the first judicial district of the state of Kintucky.” “And have you been so long?” “For the past sixteen years.” “When were you admitted to the bar?” “In 1860.” “And you have ever since been engaged, I take it, either in the practice of the law before the bar or in its administration from the bench?” “Exceptin' for the four years from April, 1861, to June, 1866.” Up until now Durham had been sparring, trying to fathom the probable trend of the old judge's expected meanderings. But in the answer to the last question he thought he caught the cue and, though none save those two knew it, thereafter it was the witness who led and the questioner who followed his lead blindly. “And where were you during those four years?” “I was engaged, suh, in takin' part in the war.” “The War of the Rebellion?” “No, suh,” the old man corrected him gently but with firmness, “the War for the Southern Confederacy.” There was a least bit of a stir at this. Aunt Tilly's tape-edged palmleaf blade hovered a brief second in the wide regular arc of its sweep and the foreman of the jury involuntarily ducked his head, as if in affiance of an indubitable fact. “Ahem!” said Durham, still feeling his way, although now he saw the path more clearly. “And on which side were you engaged?” “I was a private soldier in the Southern army,” the old judge answered him, and as he spoke he straightened up. “Yes, suh,” he repeated, “for four years I was a private soldier in the late Southern Confederacy. Part of the time I was down here in this very country,” he went on as though he had just recalled that part of it. “Why, in the summer of '64 I was right here in this town. And until yistiddy I hadn't been back since.” He turned to the trial judge and spoke to him with a tone and manner half apologetic, half confidential.