The Just and the Unjust | Page 9

grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount
Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his
death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married,
toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old
burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving
John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches.
"I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going

at once to the purpose of his visit.
The old merchant nodded understandingly.
"I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day,"
continued North.
"I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy,
Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the
sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood
open in one corner of the small office.
In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands
which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile
before him.
"You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished
counting the money.
"Never more so!" said North briefly.
"What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp
a lawyer as the judge?"
"He's counted very brilliant," evaded North.
He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the
better of his usual reserve.
"I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a
clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true,
he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy
Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?"
He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I
have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to
polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at
length.
"Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an

inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride.
"So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West,
you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he
carefully examined the bonds.
"I don't know yet."
"I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of
wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!"
"I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself.
"You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from
here."'
"Very nearly so."
"How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?"
"Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars."
"A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's
enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a
time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for
my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from
shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're
going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away
and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the
antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your
ruin."
"I imagine it is," said North cheerfully.
"You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride
continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall
Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his
grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time."

"I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?"
"Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible
people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a
profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of
parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to
use it."
One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent,
taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew
he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously.
"They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one
of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before,
did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him
a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere
yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and
I'm likely to keep