I won't say we might not do better in Memphis, but we
must consider the boy. No; if I can find a vacant house in
Raleigh, I wouldn't ask a finer spot in which to spend the
afternoon of my life."
"Afternoon?" snapped Mahaffy irritably.
"That's right--carp--! But you can't relegate me! You can't
shove me away from the portal of hope--metaphorically speaking,
I'm on the stoop; it may be God's pleasure that I enter; there's
a place for gray heads--and there's a respectable slice of life
after the meridian is passed."
"Humph!" said Mahaffy.
"I've made my impression; I've been thrown with cultivated minds
quick to recognize superiority; I've met with deference and
consideration."
"Aren't you forgetting the boy?" inquired Mahaffy. "No, sir! I
regard my obligations where he is concerned as a sacred trust to
be administered in a lofty and impersonal manner. If his
friends--if Miss Malroy, for instance--cares to make me the
instrument of her benefactions, I'll not be disposed to stand on
my dignity; but his education shall be my care. I'll make such a
lawyer of him as America has not seen before! I don't ask you to
accept my own opinion of my fitness to do this, but two gentlemen
with whom I talked this evening--one of them was the justice of
the peace--were pleased to say that they had never heard such
illuminating comments on the criminal law. I quoted the Greeks
and Romans to 'em, sir; I gave 'em the salient points on
mediaeval law; and they were dumfounded and speechless.
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