But when Marley had taken pains to explain his position and when he had described the Chicago law offices, Powell grew more reconciled. "I've watched you," he said, "I've watched you, and I've asked your father about you every time I've seen him; my one regret was that you were not working on a Cincinnati paper; then I could have read what you were writing. I did try to get a Chicago paper--but you know what this town is." Powell was deeply interested in Marley's description of his old friend, Judge Johnson, and as Marley gave him some notion of the judge's importance and prosperity Powell could only exclaim from time to time: "Well, I'll be damned!" Marley did not tell Powell that Judge Johnson had appeared to have forgotten him; he felt that it would be more handsome to accept the moral responsibility of a prevarication than to hurt Powell's feelings in the way he knew the truth would hurt them. Even as it was, Judge Johnson's success, now so keenly realized by Powell when it had been brought home to him in this personal way, seemed to subdue him, and he was only lifted out of his gloom when Marley said: "But I'll tell you one thing, there isn't a lawyer in Chicago who can try a case with you." Powell's eye brightened and his face glowed a deeper red; then the look died away as he said: "Well, I made a mistake. I ought to have gone there." "Is it too late?" Powell thought a moment, and Marley regretted having tempted him with an impossibility. He was relieved when Powell shook his head and said: "Yes, it's too late now." Powell, with something of the pathos of age and failure that was stealing gradually over him, begged Marley to come in and see him every day while he was at home. "You see I've always kept your desk," he said, in a tone that apologized for a weakness he perhaps thought unmanly, "just as it was when you went away." Marley thought cynically that Powell had kept everything else just as it was when he went away, but he was instantly ashamed of the thought, and ashamed, too, of the fact that he and Lavinia both considered even this little morning call a waste of time, and a sacrifice almost too great to be borne. Powell went with Marley out into the street, and it gave him evident pride to walk by his side down Main Street and around the Square. "I want them all to see you," he said frankly. He made Marley go with him to the McBriar House and then to Con's Corner, and, in every place where men stopped him and shook Marley's hand and asked him how he was getting along, Powell took the responsibility of replying promptly: "Look at him; how does he seem to be getting along?"