“I don't mind telling you I didn't feel this way about it first-off. It was a pretty tolerably hard jolt to me--the way the proposition first came up. I've spent a good many sleepless nights thinking it over. At least I couldn't sleep very much for thinking of it,” he amended with the literal impulse of a literal mind to state things exactly and without exaggeration. “And then finally I saw my way clear to come to this decision. And so--” “Lysandy Curd,” broke in Judge Priest, “I don't aim to give you any advice. In the first place, you ain't asked fur it; and in the second place, even ef you had asked, I'd hesitate a monstrous long time before I'd undertake to advice any man about his own private family affairs. But I jest want to ask you one thing right here: It wasn't you, was it, that first proposed the idea of this here divorce?” “Well, no, Judge, I don't believe 'twas,” confessed the old man whose misery-reddened eyes looked into Judge Priest's from across the littered desk. “I can't say as it was me that first suggested it. But that's neither here nor there. The point I'm trying to get at is just this: “The papers have all been drawn up and they'll be bringing them in here sometime to-day to be filed--the lawyers in the case will, Bigger & Quigley. Naturally, with me and Luella agreeing as to everything, there's not going to be any fight made in your court. And after it's all over I'm aiming to sell out my feed store--it seems like I haven't been able to make it pay these last few months, the same as it used to pay, and debts have sort of piled up on me some way. I reckon the fellow that said two could live as cheap as one didn't figure on one of them being a young woman--pretty herself and wanting pretty things to wear and have round the house. But I shouldn't say that--I've come to see how it's mainly my fault, and I'm figuring on how to spare Luella in every way that it's possible to spare her. So as I was saying, I'm figuring, when it's all over, on selling out my interests here, such as they are, and going back to live on that little farm I own out yonder in the Lone Elm district. It's got a mortgage on it that I put on it here some months back, but I judge I can lift that and get the place clear again, if I'm given a fair amount of time to do it in.