The judge, himself a baseball fan, looked up and down the corridor, and thus addressed William. "Did--er--that is to say--did you----" he paused. William, one palm outspread, the other falling on it in rhythm to the words, his eyes sparkling, asserted--"Honest, judge, I walloped him for fair. When we got outside he starts all over again, so I herds him into a lane and we had it out. Gee!" reflectively, "he was tough, but I did him up all right." His lordship waved a hand deprecatingly. "Enough, enough, boy," he said, solemnly. Then, in a lighter tone, "Didn't I see you at the game a week ago Saturday?" "You did, you did, sir, I sat right behind you, and--and----" "Go on." "I guess I slapped your back when you got kinder excited in the----" "Seventh innings, with the score three to nothing for Montreal, Torontos with two men on bases and nobody out"--the judge was talking rapidly now--"big Bill Hannigan at the bat, and----" "What did Hannigan do to the ball," William broke in, "but slam it over the fence for a home run, bringing in the two on bases and tying the score! Oh, joy!" A clerk of the court who came out of his office at this moment snickered audibly at the sight of a boy doing a little war dance in the corridor and a judge smiling approvingly. Throughout the years that followed, the judge and William maintained a friendly relationship. His lordship was eventually admitted into the secret of William's ambition, though it was not until their acquaintanceship had lasted three years that he took it seriously, and then he never failed to urge William to "stick to it." From Whimple, and later from "Chuck" Epstein, he obtained further light, and, on the comedian's invitation, attended two or three of the amateur entertainments in which William had a part. Epstein was chary in consenting to William appearing in the cast of such entertainments, and William could not be persuaded to do anything in this regard unless Epstein favoured it. Afterwards, they would go over the performance together, Epstein in the rôle of critic, and the old man's suggestions and advice and William's own observations and descriptions of his emotions, and his reasons for this or that slight departure from the lines and action originally mapped out, aided in the making of the William Adolphus Turnpike so beloved of the theatre-goers to-day. The judge enjoyed those performances, and he rather surprised Epstein and William both by making suggestions in respect to some of them that were valuable and illuminating. "How did you come to think of that?" asked Epstein curiously, in regard to one idea advanced by the judge.