"But," I broke in, "if when things became more settled you had begun by treating them as your friends"--I was getting into shoal water, but I blundered on, peering into the fog--"and if you had not looked upon them as an alien race who"---- Just here the siren with the pink waist who sat next me--bless her sweet face!--blew her conch-shell--she had seen the rocks ahead--and cried out:-- "Now, grandma, please stop talking about the war!" (The dear lady had been silent for five minutes.) "We're tired and sick of it, aren't we, girls? And don't you say another word, Judge. You've got to tell us some stories." A rattle of glasses from all the young people was the response, and the Judge rose, with his hand on his heart and his eyes upraised like those of a dying saint. He protested gallantly that he hadn't said a word, and the grandmother insisted with a laugh that she had merely told me about Mordecai hiding the sherry, while I vowed with much solemnity that I had not once opened my lips since I sat down, and called upon the siren in pink to confirm it. To my great surprise she promptly did, with an arch look of mock reproof in her eye; whereupon, with an atoning bow to her, I grasped the lever, rang "full speed," and thus steamed out into deep water again. While all this was going on at our end of the table, a running fire of fun had been kept at the other end, near the young man in the Prince Albert coat, which soon developed into heavy practice, the Judge with infinite zest joining in the merriment, exploding one story after another, each followed by peals of laughter and each better than the other, his Honor eating his luncheon all the while with great gusto as he handled the battery. During all this the Terrapin neglected no detail of his duty, but served the fifth course to the ladies and the kept-hot courses to the Judge with equal dexterity, and both at the same time, and all without spilling a drop or clinking a plate. When the ladies had withdrawn and we were seated on the veranda fronting the sleepy old park, each man with a rose in his buttonhole, the gift of the girl who had sat next him (the grandmother had pinned the rose she wore at her throat on the lapel of the Judge's coat), and when the Terrapin had produced a silver tray and was about to fill some little egg-shell cups from a George-the-Third coffee-pot, the Judge, who was lying back in a straw chair, a picture of perfect repose and of peaceful digestion, turned his head slightly toward me and said,-- "I am sorry, sir, but I shall be obliged to leave you in a few minutes. I have to sentence a negro by the name of Sam Crouch. When these ladies can spare you it will give me very great pleasure to have you come into court and see how we administer justice to this much-abused and much-misunderstood race," and he smiled significantly at me.