He rode on for a mile or two in moody silence, then he gave his shoulders an impatient shrug.

“I’d like to know what it is about John Randolph that makes me feel so small!  I have good times and he is always on the grind.  I have all the money I can spend and he has nothing but the pittance the governor gives him, and yet he is three times the better fellow of the two.  I envy him his spunk and go.  He comes to everything as fresh as a two-year old, and he works everything for all there is in it.  To see him climbing that hill yesterday, with the youngster on his shoulder, actually made me feel as if climbing hills was the jolliest thing in life.  And it’s so with everything he does.  Confound it!  I don’t see why I can’t get the same comfort out of things.  I don’t see where the fellow gets his vim.  If I worked as hard as he does, I’d be ready to tumble into bed instead of pegging away at Latin and Mathematics.  I’ll have to put on a spurt in self-defence or he’ll be tripping me up with his questions.  He’s got the longest head of anyone I know.  The idea of the governor daring to set such a fellow as that to cobble shoes!”

“It’s queer about the governor,” he continued after a pause.  “He’s always ready to shell out when I ask him for money, but he keeps poor John with his nose to the grindstone all the year round.  I suppose he expects me to pay him in glory.  He’s set his heart on my being a judge,—­Judge Hawthorne of Hollywood.  Sounds euphonious, and I verily believe the old gentleman has begun to roll it like a sweet morsel under his tongue.  Can’t say I have a special aptitude for the profession, and certainly the brains are not in evidence, but I suppose the governor thinks money will take their place.  He has found it takes the place of most things.

“Sultan, old boy, we seem down on our luck this morning.  We had better take a speeder to raise our spirits.  It is hardly the thing for Judge Hawthorne of Hollywood to envy John Randolph his humdrum life of mending rakes and shoes,” and he urged his horse into a mad gallop.

* * * * *

“I believe I’d like to be poor and work, John,” he exclaimed one day.  “It gets tiresome having everything laid ready to your hand, with nothing to do but take it.  Life must be full of snap when you have to dash your will up against old Dame Fortune and wrest what you want out of her miserly clutches.”

“Yes,” said John simply, “Jesus Christ was poor.”

“Look here, John.  If you don’t stop that nonsense, people will be dubbing you a crank.”

“I am ready!” he cried, and there was a strange, exulting ring in his voice.  “They called him mad, you know.”

CHAPTER VI.

Evadne found herself one morning in Judge Hildreth’s roomy coach-house, watching Pompey, as he skilfully groomed her uncle’s pets.