The times had caught up with and passed him, and no longer in the administration of justice was there need of abilities like his, hence the shield of his calling had been taken away.
Now Tom did not reckon himself obsolete.

He was badger-gray, to be sure, and stiff in one knee--a rheumatic legacy of office inherited by reason of wet nights in the open and a too-diligent devotion to duty--but in no other respect did he believe his age to be apparent.
His smoke-blue eyes were as bright as ever, his hand was quick; realization that he had been shunted upon a side track filled him with surprise and bewilderment.

It was characteristic of the man that he still considered himself a bulwark of law and order, a _de facto_ guardian of the peace, and that from force of habit he still sat facing the door and never passed between a lighted lamp and a window.
Among the late comers to Wichita Falls, where he lived, Tom was known as a quiet-spoken, emotionless old fellow with an honorable past, but with a gift for tiresome reminiscence quite out of place in the new and impatient order of things, and none but old-timers and his particular cronies were aware of the fact that he had another side to his character.

It was not generally known, for instance, that he was a kind and indulgent father and had a daughter whom he worshiped with blind adulation.

This ignorance was not strange, for Miss Barbara Parker had been away at college for four years now, and during that time she had not once returned home.
There was a perfectly good reason for this protracted separation of father and daughter; since Old Tom was no longer on pay, it took all he could rake and scrape to meet her bills, and railroad fares are high.
That Hudson River institution was indeed a finishing school; not only had it polished off Barbara, but also it had about administered the _coup de grace_ to her father.