The Judge stood looking at him absent-mindedly. "Ah, yes, I suppose so. But I don’t know why I suppose so. The truth is, I don’t know anything about it. I beg your pardon, Bradley. I am—am greatly disturbed. The fact is, I hardly know what I am about. I am a mystery unto myself. I was just thinking of it as you came in. It does not seem possible for a man, with a mountain of sorrow upon his heart, to turn squarely about and speculate upon trivial things—to jest, if I may say so, and I must for it is a fact. I am glad you came." "I am always delighted to come, Judge. Here I find the shade of a palm tree in a great desert of trade. And I came in the hope of finding you better." "Better!" The Judge looked at him almost sternly. "Better, why I am not sick. What put that into your head, Bradley?" "Why, I understood from what you have said that your health was not of the best." "But it is of the best, I assure you. But I brood, yes, I brood, and that is worse than ill-health—it is the ill health of the mind, the soul." "I am afraid you work too hard." "Um, work, I hardly know what that is. I am trying to rest, but it is like a man seeking sleep on a bed of thorns. Work is all right, for we can put it aside, but worry rides us till we are down, and then sits on our breast, waiting for us to get up." William came in, shying a little upon seeing Bradley, but shook hands with him. "I am glad to see you looking so well, Mr. William," said the preacher. "Oh, I’m a pine knot. Ain’t I, John?" The Judge looked at him inquiringly. "What did you say?" "I said I was a pine knot." "Did you?" "Did I? Didn’t I just say I did?" "If you did, you did. That’s all. But who accused you of not being a pine knot?" Bradley chuckled, and William frowned at him; then, addressing himself to the Judge, the old fellow said: "You did. You disputed it. You call me a liar every time I open my mouth." "William, you have often declared that you are not in the plot, but the first thing you know you may break into it." "No, I won’t!" William exclaimed, shaking his finger. "And I won’t break into your intellectual atmosphere, either." He turned to Bradley. "Why, sir, John is a regular professor, browbeating his class. He expects everybody to talk book. I say, damn a book. I beg your pardon. It is the first time I ever said that in the presence of a preacher." Bradley laughed. "It’s all right, Mr. William, if you feel that way." "Is it? Then, I say, damn a book. What I want is action." "I subscribe to your doctrine concerning much of our literary output," said the preacher. William was so delighted at this that he seized the preacher’s hand and shook it with more of vigor than he was wont to put forth. "Good for you, Bradley. I am half inclined to come to hear you preach." A twinkle in the Judge’s eye showed that again he was playing in the midst of his sorrow. "You’d never get there, William. You could never settle on the date."