CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER 26Visible text2 paragraphs
In the barroom of the Brookville House the flaring kerosene lamp lit up a group of men and half-grown boys, who had strayed in out of the chill darkness to warm themselves around the great stove in the middle of the floor. The wooden armchairs, which in summer made a forum of the tavern's side piazza, had been brought in and ranged in a wide semicircle about the stove, marking the formal opening of the winter session. In the central chair sat the large figure of Judge Fulsom, puffing clouds of smoke from a calabash pipe; his twinkling eyes looking forth over his fat, creased cheeks roved impartially about the circle of excited faces.
"I can understand all right about Andrew Bolton's turning up," one man was saying. "He was bound to turn up sooner or later. I seen him myself, day before yesterday, going down street. Thinks I, ‘Who can that be? ' There was something kind of queer about the way he dragged his feet. What you going to do about it, Judge? Have we got to put up with having a jailbird, as crazy as a loon into the bargain, living right here in our midst?"