Court House, with a quill in his hand, and a merry twinkle in his eye that Stephen resented.
"This way, please, sah," and he led him to a desk, from the drawer of which he drew forth a blank deed.
"Name, please!"
"Stephen Atterbury Brice."
"Residence, Mr. Brice!"
Stephen gave the number. But instead of writing it clown, the man merely stared at him, while the fat creases in his face deepened and deepened. Finally he put down his quill, and indulged in a gale of laughter, hugely to Mr. Brice's discomfiture.
"Shucks!" said the fat man, as soon as he could.
"What are you givin' us? That the's a Yankee boa'din' house."
"And I suppose that that is part of your business, too," said Stephen, acidly.
The fat man looked at him, pressed his lips, wrote down the number, shaken all the while with a disturbance which promised to lead to another explosion. Finally, after a deal of pantomime, and whispering and laughter with the notary behind the wire screen, the deed was made out, signed, attested, and delivered. Stephen counted out the money grimly, in gold and Boston drafts.
Out in the sunlight on Chestnut Street, with the girl by his side, it all seemed a nightmare. The son of Appleton Brice of Boston the owner of a beautiful quadroon girl! And he had bought hex with his last cent.
Miss Crane herself opened the door in answer to his ring. Her keen eyes instantly darted over his shoulder and dilated, But Stephen, summoning all his courage, pushed past her to the stairs, and beckoned Hester to follow.
"I have brought this--this person to see my mother," he said
The spinster bowed from the back of her neck. She stood transfixed on a great rose in the hall carpet until she heard Mrs. Brice's door open and slam, and then she strode up the stairs and into the apartment of Mrs. Abner Reed. As she passed the first landing, the quadroon girl was waiting in the hall.
CHAPTER VI. SILAS WHIPPLE
The trouble with many narratives is that they tell too much. Stephen's interview with his mother was a quiet affair, and not historic. Miss Crane's boarding-house is not an interesting place, and the tempest in that teapot is better imagined than described. Out of consideration for Mr. Stephen Brice, we shall skip likewise a most affecting scene at Mr. Canter's second-hand furniture store.
That afternoon Stephen came again to the dirty flight of steps which led to Judge Whipple's office. He paused a moment to gather courage, and then, gripping the rail, he ascended. The ascent required courage now, certainly. He halted again before the door at the top. But even as he stood there came to him, in low, rich tones, the notes of a German song. He entered And Mr. Richter rose in shirt-sleeves from his desk to greet him, all smiling.
"Ach, my friend!" said he, "but you are late. The Judge has been awaiting you."
"Has he?" inquired Stephen, with ill-concealed anxiety.
The big young German patted him on the shoulder.
Suddenly a voice roared from out the open transom of the private office, like a cyclone through a gap.
"Mr. Richter!"
"Sir!"
"Who is that?"
"Mr. Brice, sir."
"Then why in thunder doesn't he come in?"
Mr. Richter opened the private door, and in Stephen walked. The door closed again, and there he was in the dragon's dens face to face with the dragon, who was staring him through and through. The first objects that caught Stephen's attention were the grizzly gray eye brows, which seemed as so much brush to mark the fire of the deep-set battery of the eyes. And that battery, when in action, must have been truly terrible.
The Judge was shaven, save for a shaggy fringe of gray beard around his chin, and the size of his nose was apparent even in the full face.
Stephen felt that no part of him escaped the search of Mr. Whipple's glance. But it was no code or course of conduct that kept him silent. Nor was it fear entirely.
"So you are Appleton Brice's son," said the Judge, at last. His tone was not quite so gruff as it might have been.
"Yes, sir," said Stephen.
"Humph!" said the Judge, with a look that scarcely expressed approval. "I guess you've been patted on the back too much by your father's friends." He leaned back in his wooden chair. "How I used to detest people who patted boys on the back and said with a smirk, 'I know your father.' I never had a father whom people could say that about. But, sir," cried the Judge, bringing down his fist on the litter of papers that covered his desk, "I made up my mind that one day people should know me. That was my spur. And you'll start fair here, Mr. Brice. They won't know your father here--"
If Stephen thought the Judge brutal, he did not say so. He glanced around the little room,--at the bed in the corner, in which the Judge slept, and which during the day did not escape the flood of books and papers; at the washstand, with a roll of legal cap beside the pitcher.
"I guess you think this town pretty crude after Boston, Mr. Brice," Mr. Whipple continued. "From time immemorial it has been the pleasant habit of old communities to be shocked at newer settlements, built by their own countrymen. Are you shocked, sir?"
Stephen flushed. Fortunately the Judge did not give him time to answer.
"Why didn't your mother let me know that she was coming?"
"She didn't wish to put you to any trouble, sir."
"Wasn't I a good friend of your father's? Didn't I ask you to come here and go into my office?"
"But there was a chance, Mr. Whipple--"
"A chance of what?"
"That you would not like me. And there is still a chance of it," added Stephen, smiling.
For a second it looked as if the Judge might smile, too. He rubbed his nose with a fearful violence.
"Mr. Richter tells me you were looking for a bank," said he, presently.
Stephen quaked.
"Yes, sir, I was, but--"
But Mr. Whipple merely picked up the 'Counterfeit Bank Note Detector'.
"Beware of Western State Currency as you would the devil," said he. "That's one thing we don't equal the East in--yet. And so you want to become a lawyer?"
"I intend to become a lawyer, sir."
"And so you shall, sir," cried the Judge, bringing down his yellow fist upon the 'Bank Note Detector'. "I'll make you a lawyer, sir. But my methods ain't Harvard methods, sir."
"I am ready to do anything, Mr. Whipple."
The Judge merely grunted. He scratched among his papers, and produced some legal cap and a bunch of notes.
"Go out there," he said, "and take off your coat and copy this brief. Mr. Richter will help you to-day. And tell your mother I shall do myself the honor to call upon her this evening."
Stephen did as he was told, without a word. But Mr. Richter was not in the outer office when