“Hime spoke up and told the neighbour as how ’twas Imogene that had made the match ’tween him and Abby, and that if it come to a choice of gittin’ along without the el’phunt or a cook stove Abby’d let the cook stove go ev’ry time. Didn’t get much satisfaction out of Hime, now I tell ye!” “I donno of any one that ever did,” said Marriner Amazeen. “Cap Nymp’ Bodfish licked him once, time o’ the May gale, there,” stated Uncle Buck. “Cap Nymps told me he did.” “Say, do you s’pose if he’d ever licked Hime Look he’d a-hid off in the woods all next day and then sold the _Effort_ for a song and scooted to Hackenny, for all we know of him here?” demanded Amazeen. “No, s’r, there was no one ever done Hime Look in this world, except his own brother in town meetin’, and then t’was Look eat Look.” “Curi’s how things has all come around the last year,” mused Lysimachus. “The Squire married to Sylvene and settled in the Willard house and the old Judge actin’ as proud of him as----” Brickett interrupted here, coming from the inside of the store, where he had been perusing his daily paper. “Why shouldn’t he be proud of him?” he demanded, his thumb on an item, his glasses on the end of his nose. “You listen here a minute.” He began to read in a sing-song manner: “A well-founded rumour from the State House is to the effect that the Governor has tendered the vacant Supreme Court judgeship to the Hon. Phineas Look, of Palermo. Mr. Look’s legal qualifications are too well known in this State to need comment. It is understood that he is in no sense an active candidate, and the honour has been tendered by the Governor to the Palermo man by the Executive’s initiative, the Governor following his frequently expressed intention of letting certain appointments within his gift seek the man. A Supreme Court judgeship is certainly not an office to be hawked among politicians, and such an appointment will be a credit to the State and the Bar. Mr. Look is----” Brickett ran his eye down the column. “There’s pretty nigh a whole colume here about him,” he said. “But there ain’t any need of readin’ it. It’s matters we’re all knowin’ to about him. Papers was lookin’ for somethin’ to fill up with, I persume.” He flopped the sheet. “What I wanted in pertickler to call your attention to,” he went on, “was something reel interestin’. It says here that a man has shot himself in a New York lodging-house, and from marks on his clothes and his papers it is supposed that he is King Bradish, who was at one time well known in certain sportin’ quarters. That must be our King Bradish, don’t you s’pose so?” “Prob’ly,” said Uncle Buck without great interest. “And I’m glad he done it before he’d skun the last cent out of his poor old mother. I guess she ain’t got much left, as it is.” “Well, signs and wonders never cease,” sighed Marriner Amazeen, relighting his pipe; “as I said when I witnessed Sum Badger’s new will t’other day,” he continued between puffs.