After Van Dorn had touched his black wing of hair, his soft mustache and the crimson flower on his coat, he had himself well in hand and had planned his defense and counter attacks. He spoke softly: "Now, Father Jim--I'm not--" he put a touch of feeling in the "not," "going to give up the Mauling girl. When I'm elected next month, I'm going to make her my court stenographer!" He looked the Doctor squarely in the face and paused for the explosion which came in an excited, piping cry: "Why, Tom, are you crazy! Take her all over the three counties of this district with you? Why, boy--" But Judge Van Dorn continued evenly: "I don't like a man stenographer. Men make me nervous and self-conscious, and I can't give a man the best that's in me. And I propose to give my best to this job--in justice to myself. And Violet Mauling knows my ways. She doesn't interpose herself between me and my ideas, so I am going to make her court stenographer next month right after the election." When the Doctor drew in a breath to speak, Van Dorn put out a hand, checked the elder man and said blandly and smilingly, "And, Father Jim, I'm going to be elected--I'm dead sure of election." The Doctor thought he saw a glint of sheer malicious impudence in Van Dorn's smile as he finished speaking: "And anyway, pater, we mustn't quarrel right now--Just at this time, Laura--" "You're a sly dog, now, ain't you! Ain't you a sly dog?" shrilled the Doctor in sputtering rage. Then the blaze in his eyes faded and he cried in despair: "Tom, Tom, isn't there any way I can put the fear of God into you?" Van Dorn realized that he had won the contest. So he forbore to strike again. "Doctor Jim, I'm afraid you can't jar me much with the fear of God. You have a God that sneaks in the back door of matter as a kind of a divine immanence that makes for progress and Joe Calvin in there has a God with whiskers who sits on a throne and runs a sort of police court; but one's as impossible as the other. I have no God at all," his chest swelled magnificently, "and here's what happens":