His income as Justice of the Supreme Court was $12,000 a year, but for a man in his position, having a certain appearance to keep up, it little more than kept the wolf from the door.

He lived quietly but comfortably in New York City with his wife and his daughter Shirley, an attractive young woman who had graduated from Vassar and had shown a marked taste for literature.

The daughter's education had cost a good deal of money, and this, together with life insurance and other incidentals of keeping house in New York, had about taken all he had.

Yet he had managed to save a little, and those years when he could put by a fifth of his salary the judge considered himself lucky.

Secretly, he was proud of his comparative poverty.
At least the world could never ask him "where he got it." Ryder was well acquainted with Judge Rossmore's private means.