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Herbert Pryme stood by a much ink-stained and littered table in his chambers in the Temple, with his hands in his trousers pockets, whistling a slow and melancholy tune. It was Mr. Pryme's habit to whistle when he was dejected or perplexed; and the whistling generally partook of the mournful condition of his feelings.
In a short while, or maybe after a thousand years or so, he would awake, in his little room with the ink-stained table, and take up his writing where he had left off the day before.
"In the first place, if my opinion of you is worth anything, I tell you frankly that I would rather see you with ink-stained fingers and worn clothes, climbing your way up toward the truth, working and thinking in an atmosphere which was not befouled with all the small and petty things of life.
An ink-stained table, littered with pens, papers, and almanacs, an American cloth sofa, three chairs of varying patterns, and a much-worn carpet, constituted all the furniture, save only a very large and obtrusive porcelain spittoon, and a gaudily framed and very somber picture which hung above the fireplace.
As the door closed, Dick wheeled around from the press, holding out his ink-stained hand to George. "What's the matter?" said the other wonderingly, but grasping the outstretched hand of his helper. "I want to shake hands with a man, that's all," said Dick. "Why don't you join the church and win her?" "Because if I did that I wouldn't be worthy of her," said George.
Whenever there was trouble at recess, and some one pushed or some one else had their gathers torn out, or, in actual war, names were called, and "mean thing" and "tattle-tale" brought sobbing little maids to the teacher's arms, or when loss and disaster in the way of missing blocks of rubber, broken slate pencils, or ink-stained reader covers sent floods of tears down small faces, this teacher always came to the rescue and soothed and patted and invariably wound up with these exact words, "There, there, don't let us say anything more about it, and then we'll all be quite happy."
The justice was bald and as dry as corn fodder in March. He sat with spectacled impressiveness behind his ink-stained table. Horace hitched his heel on the round of his chair and put his hat on his knee. He wore his best coat and his hair was brushed in deference to the occasion. He looked uncomfortable, but important. I sat opposite him, somewhat overwhelmed by the business in hand.
My first impression was one of astonished disgust because of the hideousness of the ink-stained walls, and of the old benches of shiny wood defaced by the penknife carvings of countless school-boys who had been so inexpressibly miserable in this place. Although I observed my school-mates timidly and furtively I thought them, for the most part, exceedingly ill-mannered and untidy.
Everything in M. Batifol's school the grotesque and miserable teachers, the ferocious and cynical pupils, the dingy, dusty, and ink-stained rooms saddened and displeased Amedee.
And he was quite as much in the dark as to his friend's motive when Ruth announced their first visit to be to the office of the Herringport Harpoon, the local news sheet. A man with bushy hair, a pencil stuck over his ear, and wearing an ink-stained apron, met them in the office of the Harpoon. This was Ezra Payne, editor and publisher of the weekly news-sheet, and this was his busiest day.
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