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He got down to a desk telephone in the hall with a clear-cut sense of adventure because he had never used a telephone before. He placed the receiver to his ear without knowing quite what to expect. For several minutes he heard a simple buzzing, then said aloud to the maid, "I can't understand anything." The next moment a queer metallic voice said in his ear, "Is that you, Mr. Teeftallow?"

"Yes," exclaimed Abner in surprise.

"Buckingham Sharp talking. Will you kindly call at my office at about ten?"

"Yes," said Abner, keeping his voice elevated and expecting the conversation to run to the indefinite length of all colloquys in the hills.

"I'll expect you, then, good-bye." There was a click, and the quality of the buzz against which this conversation had been cast changed somewhat.

"I declare," thought Abner, hanging up the receiver and looking at it, "he was pretty damn short. . . ."

At ten o'clock Abner entered Buckingham Sharp's office in the court square wondering what the lawyer wanted. Mr. Sharp sat at his desk, a short, rather heavy young man, with a round pink face and a soft pulpy look to his body. He would have appeared a nonentity with his round face and fat body had it not been for his eyes. These were slate-blue, shrewd, informed, and appeared to be appraising the world, planning how to use it to the best advantage for Mr. Sharp. The lawyer was always polite and impersonal. This morning he arose to meet Abner, smiled faintly as he shook the youth's hand, seated him in a chair, and then said in the softly accented English of the aristocratic Southern plantation owners, "I have just found out something about you, Mr. Teeftallow, which interests me."

"What's that?"

"Your grandfather, Judge Coltrane, came up here from Talledega, Alabama."

Abner nodded indifferently.

"he was one of the North Alabama Coltranes. He must