At three next afternoon, Toby and I sought the court-house to get our twenty dollars back, as agreed. The ante-room was filled with smoke from a group of Houstonians whose lurking smiles seemed to promise indulgence. The judge was old and impassive, filmed with an absent-mindedness hard to penetrate. Yet he, too, had a lurking grin which he bit off when he spoke. “Yo’ are charged with exceeding the speed limit at a rate of fo’ty-five miles an hour.” “Your Honor, this was my first day in the State, and I hadn’t learned your traffic laws.” He looked up over his spectacles. “Yo’re from Massachusetts?” “Yes, sir!” Toby and I waited in suspense. We saw a faint spark light the cold, filmed blue eye, spread to the corner of his grim mouth, while a look of benevolent anticipation rippled over his set countenance. It was coming! I got ready to say with a spontaneous laugh “We surely _are_.” And then he bit it off! “Yo’ know speeding is a very serious offense----” “I wouldn’t have done it for worlds, your Honor, if I hadn’t seen all the Texas cars going quite fast, so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I did the same. I only arrived yesterday from Massachusetts.” “Thet’s so. Yo’re from Massachusetts?” We waited hopefully. But again he bit it off. “It’s a mighty serious offense. But, seein’ as yo’re a stranger and a lady at that----” His voice became indulgently reassuring. We felt we had done well to wait over a day, and trust to Southern chivalry. “Considering everything, I’ll be easy on you. Twenty dollars.” His tone was so fatherly that I knew only gratitude for being saved from two months in a Texas dungeon. “Thank you, your Honor,” I faltered. Outside, Toby looked at me in scorn. “What did you thank him for?” she asked. Whether it be contempt of court or no, I wish to state that subsequent inquiry among the hairdressers, hotel clerks, and garage men of Houston, revealed that a fine of such magnitude had never been imposed in the annals of the town. The usual sentence was a rebuke for first offenses, two dollars for the second and so on. The judge was right. I _was_ a stranger---- But what could you expect from a soul of granite who could resist such a mellowing, opportune, side-splitting bon mot?--could swallow it unsaid? I hope it choked him. CHAPTER IV CHIVALRY VS. GUMBO A guide, who at the age of twelve had in disgust left his native state, once epitomized it to me. “Texas is a hell of a state. Chock full of socialists, horse-thieves and Baptists.”