Now let her alone; let Hannibal have his luck as it comes to him." "You seem to forget, sir, that I still bear the name of gentleman!" said the judge.
Mahaffy gave way to acid merriment.
"Well, see that you are not tempted to forget that," he observed.
"If I didn't know your sterling qualities, Solomon, and pay homage to 'em, I might be tempted to take offense," said the judge.
"It's like pouring water on a duck's back to talk to you, Price; nothing strikes in." "On the contrary, I am at all times ready to listen to reason from any quarter, but I've studied this matter in its many-sided aspect.

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.