The Just and the Unjust

The Just and the Unjust, by
Vaughan Kester,

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Title: The Just and the Unjust
Author: Vaughan Kester
Release Date: January 3, 2005 [eBook #14581]
Language: English
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THE JUST AND THE UNJUST
by
VAUGHAN KESTER
Author of The Prodigal Judge, etc.
Illustrations by M. Leone Bracker
Indianapolis The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers
1912

[Illustration: "Oh, I want you, Elizabeth!"]

TO MY WIFE

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
FIGHTING SHRIMPLIN II THE PRICE OF FOLLY III STRANGE
BEDFELLOWS IV ADVENTURE IN EARNEST V COLONEL
GEORGE HARBISON VI PUTTING ON THE SCREWS VII THE
BEAUTY OF ELIZABETH VIII A GAMBLER AT HOME IX THE
STAR WITNESS X HUSBAND AND WIFE XI THE FINGER OF
SUSPICION XII JOE TELLS HIS STORY XIII LIGHT IN
DARKNESS XIV THE GAMBLER'S THEORY XV LOVE THAT
ENDURES XVI AT HIS OWN DOOR XVII AN UNWILLING

GUEST XVIII FATHER AND SON XIX SHRIMPLIN TO THE
RESCUE XX THE CAT AND THE MOUSE XXI THE HOUSE OF
CARDS XXII GOOD MEN AND TRUE XXIII THE LAST APPEAL
XXIV THE LAST LONG DAY XXV ON THE HIGH IRON BRIDGE
XXVI CUSTER'S IDOL FALLS XXVII FAITH IS RESTORED
XXVIII THE LAST NIGHT IN JAIL XXIX AT IDLE HOUR
CHAPTER ONE
FIGHTING SHRIMPLIN
Custer felt it his greatest privilege to sit of a Sunday morning in his
mother's clean and burnished kitchen and, while she washed the
breakfast dishes, listen to such reflections as his father might care to
indulge in.
On these occasions the senior Shrimplin, commonly called Shrimp by
his intimates, was the very picture of unconventional ease-taking as he
lolled in his chair before the kitchen stove, a cracker box half filled
with sawdust conveniently at hand.
As far back as his memory went Custer could recall vividly these
Sunday mornings, with the church bells ringing peacefully beyond the
windows of his modest home, and his father in easy undress, just
emerged from his weekly bath and pleasantly redolent of strong yellow
soap, his feet incased in blue yarn socks--white at toe and heel--and the
neckband of his fresh-starched shirt sawing away at the lobes of his
freckled ears. On these occasions Mr. Shrimplin inclined to a certain
sad conservatism as he discussed with his son those events of the week
last passed which had left their impress on his mind. But what pleased
Custer best was when his father, ceasing to be gently discursive and
becoming vigorously personal, added yet another canto to the stirring
epic of William Shrimplin.
Custer was wholly and delightfully sympathetic. There was, he felt, the
very choicest inspiration in the narrative, always growing and
expanding, of his father's earlier career, before Mrs. Shrimplin came
into his life, and as Mr. Shrimplin delicately intimated, tied him hand

and foot. The same grounds of mutual understanding and intellectual
dependence which existed between Custer and his father were lacking
where Mrs. Shrimplin was concerned. She was unromantic, with a
painfully literal cast of mind, though Custer--without knowing what is
meant by a sense of humor, suspected her of this rare gift, a dangerous
and destructive thing in woman. Privately considering her relation to
his father, he was forced to the conclusion that their union was a most
distressing instance of the proneness of really great minds to leave their
deep channels and seek the shallow waters in the every-day concerns of
life. He felt vaguely that she was narrow and provincial; for had she not
always lived on the flats, a region bounded by the Square on the north
and by Stoke's furniture factory on the south? On the west the flats
extended as far as civilization itself extended in that direction, that is, to
the gas house and the creek bank, while on the east they were roughly
defined by Mitchell's tannery and the brick slaughter-house, beyond
which vacant lots merged into cow pastures, the cow pastures yielding
in their turn to the real country, where the level valley rolled up into
hills which tilted the great green fields to the sun.
Mrs. Shrimplin had been born on the flats, and the flats had witnessed
her meeting and mating with Shrimplin,