Then the Judge went home to occupy the
rest of the evening with some matters of business.
In the Strong mansion the room known as the library is on the ground
floor in a wing of the main building. As rooms have a way of doing, it
expresses unmistakably the character of its tenant. There is a book-case,
with a few spick-and-span books standing in prim, cold rows behind the
glass doors--which are always locked. The key is somewhere, no doubt.
There are no pictures on the walls, save a fancy calendar--presented with
the compliments of the Judge's banker, a crayon portrait of the Judge's
father--in a cheap gilt frame, and another calendar, compliments of the
Judge's grocer.
The furniture and appointments are in harmony; a table, with a teachers'
Bible and a Sunday school quarterly, a big safe wherein the Judge kept
his various mortgages and papers of value, and the Judge's desk, being
most conspicuous. It is a significant comment on the Elder's business
methods that, in the top right-hand drawer of his desk, he keeps a weapon
ready for instant use, and that the window shades are always drawn when
the lamps are lighted.
Sitting at his desk the Judge heard the front doorbell ring and his wife
direct someone to the library. A moment later he looked up from his
papers to see Dan standing before him.
The Judge was startled. He had thought the young man far away. Then, too,
the Judge had never seen the minister dressed in rough trousers, belted
at the waist; a flannel shirt under a torn and mud-stained coat; and
mud-spattered boots that came nearly to his hips.
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