The somewhat difficult task of rescuing Judge Wiggin from drowning was accomplished, while the panting throng that had reached the bridge looked on and cheered. Reaching shallow water, the young man assisted the judge to his feet, and both waded forth to dry land. Arriving on shore, the older man immediately sat down facing the river, beneath the sluggish surface of which Governor Bradley’s automobile lay immersed. After a few choking gulps, he began to speak in accents and words of the utmost self-contempt. “Nate Wiggin,” he said, addressing himself, “you’ve lived to be fifty-four year old, and arrived at the conclusion that there wasn’t anything that traveled on legs or wheels that you couldn’t handle. Which goes to show that when a man thinks he knows all there is to know about anything a shrinkage has set in about half an inch beneath the roots of his hair. A wise fool is about as safe to have round as a stick of dynamite bakin’ in the oven of a red-hot stove. If he don’t damage nobody else, he’s pretty likely to blow up and bust himself.” The governor and his secretary, followed by a few others, came hurrying to the spot. Seeing them approach, the judge got upon his feet, dripping tiny rivulets. “Governor,” he observed, “there’s no great loss without some small gain. You’ll save the price of a wash for that there automobile. Whatever damage or expense may accrue I ca’late I’ll have to sustain. I guess we can find a way to get her out.” “I’m thankful,” said Governor Bradley, “that you were not killed.” “I don’t see why that should choke you with joy. In your place I’d prob’ly be so blazin’ mad I’d start in to murder somebody.” His eyes streaming and his nose snuffling, Weeping Buzzell broke in: “Obadiah Cobb has come along with his hoss and wagon. He’s right there at the end of the bridge, and he’ll take ye home, jedge. You better git outer them wet clothes it you don’t want to ketch your everlarsting.” “I’m no wetter’n this young feller who yanked me outer the drink,” said the judge. “He’s got to come along to the house with me and get fixed up. And you, too, governor, and t’other gentleman—you come; I insist on it. You’re going to stop with me, the whole caboodle of ye, to supper. Hosspitality deferred may be hosspitality soured, but I’ll guarantee to do my best to sweeten it up on this occasion.” By this time it seemed that by far the greater portion of the inhabitants of the town were packed upon the bridge or jamming the roadway. And when Obadiah Cobb took the governor, the judge, and the other two men into his double seater and started back up the hill with them, the crowd laughed and cheered again.