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Sa matter of record, the Circuit Court adjourns twice a day during its stay at Belo. As a matter of fact, it never adjourns at all, for when the judge leaves the bench the proceedings are merely transferred from the floor of the courthouse to the lobby of the Reeve House, where lawyers, witnesses, litigants, and jurors fraternize in continuous session until the reopening of the official tribunal. Indeed, that antiquated, if not ancient, hostelry, the Reeve House, is quite generally regarded by Fraser County in the light of an annex to the Court, and some even profess to believe that it is the more important forum of the two. Certainly the village cynic is not alone in championing it upon the ground that cases are really settled there, whereas in the Court they are merely kicked up the stairway of appeal. But public opinion in Belo rather frowns on remarks of that character, as Dick Poinder learned to his cost when he announced, after one of his exasperating experiences in Gedney's case, that the lobby dispensed justice and the Court dispensed with it. In fact, that travel-stained witticism was in some danger of being taken too seriously until the Bar laughed it away by subjecting its perpetrator to a mock trial for plagiarism during the hilarious wind-up of the Christmas term.

On the evening that the Resurrectionist first appeared upon the scene the lobby was sitting as a sort of Court of Appeal, reviewing

the day's work just completed at the rival tribunal on the opposite side of the road. Every chair in the circle that ringed the huge stove was occupied; half a dozen unclaimed trunks had been dragged from a corner to serve as settees; the writing-table had been utilized as a gallery; even the proprietor's sanctum had been invaded and robbed of its solitary high stool, and Old Man Reeve, thus deprived of his favorite throne, had perched himself on the office desk, with his feet dangling over the front, from which post of vantage he seemed to be presiding over the assemblage with all the commanding calmness of a judge upon the bench.

Old Man Reeve had undoubtedly once been young, but his youth probably antedated the period of the yellow, cracked, and flyblown lithograph of the Bar of Fraser County which had served as the sole ornament of the lobby since the early seventies. At all events, those who knew him in that distant day asserted that he was an old man then. But if he had aged prematurely, time had dealt kindly with him on the whole, for his round, cleanshaven face had suffered no change for many a season, and no one thought any more of his years than of the fact that he always wore low black shoes and white socks, and never condescended to a collar. His neighbors in Belo, it is true, reported that his vitality often seemed to wane during vacations, when the county seat relapsed into its normal

rôle of a retired inland village; but each advent of the Court apparently gave him a new lease of life, and he invariably welcomed the returning Bench and Bar with all the vigor and heartiness of a man in the prime of life.

Certainly there was no keener observer in Fraser County than Peter Reeve as he sat on his improvised rostrum, pipe in hand, beaming a benediction on his assembled guests. He knew every man in the place and just what had brought him there; he could name every juror who had sat on any case of importance during the past thirty years, and give the inside history of his verdict; he was generally familiar with the claims of the litigants long before they reached the court-room; and there were not many lawyers who could tell him anything he did not already know concerning the private affairs of their clients.

For instance, as he peered through the gathering haze of tobacco smoke, he knew exactly what was troubling the frail little man who, note-book in hand, was hovering on the outskirts of the wide circle surrounding the stove. David Gedney and he had been friends since the day when the firm of Gedney & Son first started in business just across the State line, and he had seen that business expand and prosper until it began to threaten the gigantic Farm Supply Company with a competition as unwelcome as it was unprecedented. It was not surprising, therefore, that he was familiar with every detail of the bitter trade war that had followed, the upshot of which was a litigation which had crippled his friend's resources and was now menacing the very existence of his firm. For five terms-more than a yearhe had witnessed Gedney's struggle to bring his enemies to bay in the court-room, but thus far the Supply Company had managed to postpone the day of reckoning by all the shifts and evasions known to its attorney, Mr. Artemus Peck, one of Fraser County's most expert defeaters of the law.

exhausted, was beyond advice, and term after term he had haunted the lobby, note-book in hand, interviewing lawyers, buttonholing court clerks, imploring other litigants to concede him the right of way on the jury calendar, and generally working himself into a nervous condition bordering on insanity. Indeed, on this particular evening there was a really dangerous gleam in his tired eyes as he completed his tour of the lobby, and, sinking down on one of the crowded trunks, whispered to his nearest neighbor that he held the top of the calendar at last and that hell itself couldn't prevent his case from being heard in the morning.

The young farmer to whom this incomprehensible remark was addressed glanced apprehensively at the speaker and promptly vacated his seat on pretense of seeking a light for his cigar.

Old Man Reeve, listening to the tag end of a story from his side of the circle, disregarded the question for a moment, and then, striking a match on his trousers and shading the flame with his hands, proceeded to relight his pipe.

"Reckon your Paw'd feel kinder set up, Eph, if he believed you'd ever be as crazy as Dave Gedney," he replied, between puffs.

The youth laughed uneasily and shot a swift glance at his recent neighbor. "Gosh! Is that Gedney of Gedney & Son?" he exclaimed. No wonder I didn't

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recognize him. He's changed something terrible, and as for talk-"

"You can't always tell about a man by his talk, Eph," interrupted Reeve. "For instance, if I sized you up by what you've just let on as to Gedney, I'd kinder suspect you weren't all intellect. But maybe you're a better judge of outsides, my boy," he continued, "and if so, you can tell me what's coming in at the door right now. Blamed if I ever saw the like of it afore in Fraser County."

The individual to whom the old man thus called attention was certainly an unfamiliar type to the denizens of the Reeve House, for all conversation had instantly ceased as he crossed the threshold, and every eye was centered upon him as he closed the door and stood looking inquiringly about him. Perhaps his huge stature, pompous bearing,