One bitter cold December day, when the wind was blowing sleet down Market Street, and hardly a passer-by darkened the doors of the stores, the handsome Judge sailed easily into the Amen Corner, fumbled over the magazines, picked out a pocketful of cigars from the case, without calling Mr. Brotherton who was in the rear of the store working upon his accounts, lighted a cigar, and stood looking out of the frosted window at the deserted gray windy street, utterly ignoring the presence of Captain Morton who was pretending to be deeply buried in the _National Tribune_, but who was watching the Judge and trying to summon courage to speak. The Judge unbuttoned his modish gray coat that nearly reached his heels and put his hands behind him for a moment, as he puffed and pondered--apparently debating something. "Judge," said the Captain suddenly and then the Captain's courage fell and he added, "Bad morning." "Yes," acquiesced the Judge from his abstraction. In a long pause that followed, Captain Morton swallowed at least a peck of Adam's apples that kept coming up to choke him, and then he cleared his throat and spoke: "Tom--Tom Van Dorn--look around here." He lowered his voice and went on, "I want to talk to you." The Captain edged over on the bench. "Sit down here a minute--I've been wanting to see you for a month." Captain Morton spoke all but in a whisper. The Adam's apple kept strangling him. The Judge saw that the old man was wrestling with some heavy problem. He turned, and looking down at the little wizened man, asked: "Well, Captain?" The Captain moistened his lips, patted his toes on the floor, and twirled his fingers. He took a deep breath and said: "Tom, I've known you since you were twenty-one years old. Do you remember how we took you in the first night you came to town--me and mother? before the hotel was done, eh?" A smile on the Judge's face emboldened the Captain. "You've got brains, Tom--lots of brains--I often say Tom Van Dorn will sit in the big chair at the White House yet--what say? Well, Tom--" Now there was the place to say it. But the Captain's Adam's apple bobbed convulsively in a second silence. He decided to take a fresh start: "Tom, you're a sensible man--? I says to myself I'm going to have a plain talk to that man. He's smart; he'll appreciate it. Just the other day--George back there, and John Kollander and Dick Bowman and old man Adams, and Joe Calvin, and Kyle Perry were in here talking and I says--Gentlemen, that boy's got brains--lots of brains--eh? and he's a prince; 'y gory a prince, that's what Tom Van Dorn is, and I can go to him--I can talk to him--what say?" The Captain was on the brink again. Slowly there mantled over the face of the prince the gray scum of a fear. And the scar on his forehead flashed crimson. The Captain saw that he had been anticipated. He began patting his toes on the floor. Judge Van Dorn's face was set in a cement of resistance.