“Jeff,” clarioned the sergeant, hugging the blistered rescuer yet closer to him and beating him on the back with hearty thumps--“Jeff, God bless your black hide, how did you come to think of it?” “Well, suh, Mr. Bagby,” wheezed Jeff, “hit wuz lak dis: I didn't wake up w'en she fust started. I got so much on my mind to do daytimes 'at I sleeps mighty sound w'en I does sleep. Presen'ly, tho', I did wake up, an' I got my pants on, an' I come runnin' acrost de lot frum de stable, an' I got heah jes' in time to hear 'em all yellin' out dat de jedge is done went back into de house. I sees there ain't no chanc't of goin' in after him de way he's done went, but jes' about that time I remembers dat air little po'ch up yonder on de front of de house w'ich it seem lak ever'body else had done furgot all 'bout hit bein' there a-tall. So I runs round to de back right quick, an' I dim' up de lattice-work by de kitchen, an' I comes out along over de roof, an' I drap down on de little po'ch, an' after that, I reckin, you seen de rest of it fur you'self, suh--all but whut happen after I gits inside dat window.” “What did happen?” From the ring of men who hedged in the sergeant and Jeff five or six asked the same question at once. Before an all-white audience Jeff visibly expanded himself. “W'y, nothin' a-tall happen,” he said, “'ceptin' that I found de ole boss-man right where I figgered I'd find him--in his own room at de foot of his baid. He'd done fell down dere on de flo', right after he grabbed dat air picture offen de wall. Yas, suh, that's perzack-ly where I finds him!” “But, Jeff, how could you breathe up there?” Still in the sergeant's cordial grasp, Jeff made direct answer: “Gen'l'mens, I didn't! Fur de time bein' I jes' natchelly abandoned breathin'!” Again that night Judge Priest had a dream--only this time the dream lacked continuity and sequence and was but a jumble of things--and he emerged from it with his thoughts all in confusion. In his first drowsy moment of consciousness he had a sensation of having taken a long journey along a dark rough road. For a little he lay wondering where he was, piecing together his impressions and trying to bridge the intervening gaps. Then the light got better and he made out the anxious face of Doctor Lake looking down at him and, just over Doctor Lake's shoulder, the face of Sergeant Bagby. He opened his mouth then and spoke. “Well, there's one thing certain shore,” said the judge: “this ain't heaven! Because ef 'twas, there wouldn't be a chance of you and Jimmy Bagby bein' here with me.” Whereupon, for no apparent reason on earth that Judge Priest could fathom, Doctor Lake, with a huskily affectionate intonation, called him by many profane and improper names; and Sergeant Bagby, wiping his eyes with one hand, made his other hand up into a fist and shook it in Judge Priest's face, meanwhile emotionally denouncing him as several qualified varieties of an old idiot.