"'Oh, come now, Judge,' he sort of hiccoughed, 'this ain't the way for two old friends to part. This ain't the way for me to treat an old friend who's given me this. I want to buy you something--I want to buy you at least one drink--before I go. Come on, now, Judge. What'll you have?' says he." They had all forgotten Old Jerry's interruption; they had forgotten everything else but the Judge's recital, that was climbing to its climax. That room was very quiet when the speaker paused and waited for his words to sink in--very quiet until a half-smothered giggle broke the stillness. There was an unholy glee in that mirth--a mocking, lilting note of actual joy which rang almost profane at such a moment. Man for man it brought that circle erect in the chairs; man for man they sat and stared at the grotesque figure which was rocking now in a paroxysm of laughter too real for simulation. In a breathless hush they turned from the offender back to the judge, waiting, appalled, for the storm to break. Judge Maynard's round moon-face went purple. Twice he tried to speak before he sat silent, annihilation in his eyes, until Jerry's outbreak had subsided. Then he lifted one forefinger and pointed, with all the majesty such a gesture could ever convey, to the empty chair--the chair which Old Jerry should have been occupying in becoming silence at that moment. "Have you gone crazy?" he thundered. "Have you--or are you just naturally witless? Or was there something you wanted to say? If there isn't--if you've no questions to ask--you get over to that chair and sit down where you belong!" It was then that the rest of the circle realized that something had gone wrong--most mightily wrong! According to all precedent, the little, white-haired man should have shrunk back and cowered beneath that verbal lash, and obeyed without a glance. They all realized that there was imminent a climax unforeseen by all--all but the Judge; and he was too blind with rage to see. Very meekly Old Jerry bore his thundered rebuke--too meekly. But after the judge had finished he failed to move; he merely stood there, facing the town's great man. And in his attitude there was something of infantile, derisive, sparrowlike impudence as he peered back into the Judge's face--something that was very like the attitude of an outraged, ruffled old reprobate of a parrot rearing himself erect. Old Jerry made no haste. It was a thing which required a nice deliberation. And so he waited--waited and prolonged the moment to its last, sweetest second. Once more he chuckled, to himself this time--just once, before he began to speak. That old Tavern office had never been so deathly still before.