“I ought not to have come out this day,” said the old man querulously. “But I didn’t want to send word to you to come to my office for fear you would think it strange and not come. And I felt that I had much need to see you, Lawyer Look.” “I would have come if you had sent word,” said the Squire, simply. He did not utter his curt “What can I do for you?” so common with him in these busy times, but looked at his visitor with inquiring gaze. “Haven’t you got any influence or control over that fool brother of yours?” demanded the Judge, bluntly and indignantly. “I don’t care to reply to questions of that sort put in that fashion,” returned the lawyer, knitting his brows. Willard stared a moment into his face with its hard lines and then shifted his eyes under the steady gaze of the Squire. “I don’t mean to be tart with you, Mr. Look,” he said, moderating his tone, “but I don’t think you ought to let your brother come into this town, after all that’s happened, and do what he is trying to do to me and mine. You’re a man of standing and I’m going to say to you that I think you are above such things.” His apology was awkward and half-hearted. “Aren’t you going to handle him and prevent him from making a fool of himself?” “I don’t care to enter into any statement to you, Judge Willard, of certain family discussions that have already occurred between my brother and myself. I simply want to state for your benefit that I have no sympathy with certain movements of his. But my brother’s business is his own, Judge. He has adopted his own manner of living and occupies his own apartments at our house, and if you care to talk this matter over with him you’ll find him there at any time. I shall not interfere in his affairs.” “I can’t talk with him,” remonstrated the old man. “There isn’t any sense in him. With him it is either a curse or a blow, and the Willard family has had enough of both from him. I have come to talk with you, Mr. Look. Whatever else I have said to you and of you, I’ll acknowledge that you are a fair man to talk with.” The lawyer made no reply. “I’ll say nothing to you of his under-handed tricks to interfere in my business of loans and private banking,” went on Willard, stroking his trembling hand along his withered neck. “But now he is going to mix into town politics with his brass band and his free suppers and free dances and his circus flapdoodle. It’s hurting this town, Lawyer Look, and I appeal to you as a good citizen of Palermo to pull him back and make him behave himself and not bring discredit on the place that I and mine before me have been proud of so long.” There was some dignity as well as earnest appeal in the old man’s voice. “I understand that he has the hoodlums with him,” he went on. “He can make a lot of trouble in our town meeting this month. We have always got along so well that it will be a shame to bring uproar and contention and cheapness into our town affairs, Mr. Look.”