Page:Quinby and Son (1925).pdf/242



T would have been an insult to the hair-splitting technicalities of law to have called Justice of the Peace Manning a judge. Yet "Judge" was the title Springham gave him. However, the town suffered no illusions. It never believed that he knew much law, and still less did he believe it himself. A dignified jurist, sitting on the bench of a county or a district court, would have been amazed at his processes. He was not above eating an apple while a case was undergoing trial, and often he sat in his shirt sleeves and called complainants and defendants by their given names. Occasionally, when pompous lawyers from the city came before him to defend some one who had enough money to engage highpriced legal talent, the visiting lights gnashed their teeth and groaned in impotent fury at the way he swept aside legal formalities and got down to bedrock. For Judge Manning was interested only in getting at the truth, and it made no difference to him how he got at it. Springham was satisfied with his methods, and reëlected him time and again with monotonous regularity.