Perhaps this was in some way accountable for the fact that the ’squire remained year after year in old Mr. Clarke’s will as an executor, long after he had ceased to be regarded as a responsible person by the village at large, for Mr. Clarke also was devoted to the Minsters. At all events, he was so named in the will, in conjunction with a non-legal brother of the deceased, and it was in this capacity that he addressed some remarks to Mr. Horace Boyce when he handed over to him the Minster papers. The scene was a small and extremely dirty chamber off the justice’s court-room, furnished mainly by a squalid sofa-bed, a number of empty bottles on the bare floor, and a thick overhanging canopy of cobwebs. “Here they are,” said the ’squire, expectorating indefinitely among the bottles, “and God help ’em! What it all means beats me.” “I guess you needn’t worry, Cal,” answered Horace lightly, in the easily familiar tone which Thessaly always adopted toward its unrespected magistrate. “You’d better come out and have a drink; then you’ll see things brighter.” “Damn your impudence, you young cub!” shouted the ’squire, flaming up into sudden and inexplicable wrath. “Who are you calling ‘Cal’? By the Eternal, when I was your age, I’d have as soon bitten off my tongue as dared call a man of my years by his Christian name! I can remember your great-grandfather, the judge, sir. I was admitted before he died; and I tell you, sir, that if it had been possible for me to venture upon such a piece of cheek with him, he’d have taken me over his knee, by Gawd! and walloped me before the whole assembled bar of Dearborn County!” The old man had worked himself up into a feverish reminiscence of his early stump-speaking days, and he trembled and spluttered over his concluding words with unwonted excitement. Horace felt disposed to laugh. People always did laugh at “Cal” Gedney, and laugh most when he grew strenuous. “You’d better get the drink first,” he said, putting the box under his arm, “and _then_ free your mind.” “I’ll see you food for worms, first!” shouted the ’squire, still furiously. “You’ve got your papers, and I’ve got my opinion, and that’s all there is ’twixt you and me. There’s the door that the carpenters made, and I guess they were thinking of you when they made it.” “Upon my word, you’re amusing this morning, ’squire,” said Horace, looking with aroused interest at the vehement justice. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t your clothes fit you? Come around to the house and I’ll rig you up in some new ones.” The ’squire began with a torrent of explosive profanity, framed in gestures which almost threatened personal violence. All at once he stopped short, looked vacantly at the floor, and then sat down on his bed, burying his face in his hands. From the convulsive clinching of his fingers among the grizzled, unkempt locks of hair, and the heaving of his chest, Horace feared he was going to have a fit, and, advancing, put a hand on his shoulder.