“I LIKE a man,” said the Blight. “I like a MAN.”      

       Of course the Blight must see everything, so she insisted on going to the police court next morning for the trial of the mountain boy. The boy was in the witness chair when we got there, and the Hon. Samuel Budd was his counsel. He had volunteered to defend the prisoner, I was soon told, and then I understood. The November election was not far off and the Hon. Samuel Budd was candidate for legislature. More even, the boy's father was a warm supporter of Mr. Budd and the boy himself might perhaps render good service in the cause when the time came—as indeed he did. On one of the front chairs sat the young engineer and it was a question whether he or the prisoner saw the Blight's black plumes first. The eyes of both flashed toward her simultaneously, the engineer colored perceptibly and the mountain boy stopped short in speech and his pallid face flushed with unmistakable shame. Then he went on: “He had liquered up,” he said, “and had got tight afore he knowed it and he didn't mean no harm and had never been arrested afore in his whole life.”      

       “Have you ever been drunk before?” asked the prosecuting attorney       severely. The lad looked surprised.     

       “Co'se I have, but I ain't goin' to agin—leastwise not in this here town.” There was a general laugh at this and the aged mayor rapped loudly.     

       “That will do,” said the attorney.     

       The lad stepped down, hitched his chair slightly so that his back was to the Blight, sank down in it until his head rested on the back of the chair and crossed his legs. The Hon. Samuel Budd arose and the Blight looked at him with wonder. His long yellow hair was parted in the middle and brushed with plaster-like precision behind two enormous ears, he wore spectacles, gold-rimmed and with great staring lenses, and his face was smooth and ageless. He caressed his chin ruminatingly and rolled his lips until they settled into a fine resultant of wisdom, patience, toleration and firmness. His manner was profound and his voice oily and soothing.     

       “May it please your Honor—my young friend frankly pleads guilty.” He paused as though the majesty of the law could ask no more. “He is a young man of naturally high and somewhat—naturally, too, no doubt—bibulous spirits. 

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