was to see him eat, regarded him with eyes fairly dewy from sympathy.
To A. L. Jackson, the cook, on a trip for hot muffins, he observed, "He
eats jes' like th' ole man. I suttin'y do love t' see that boy behave
when he got his fresh moral appetite on him. He suttin'y do ca'y
hisse'f mighty handsome."

With Coplen's final recommendation to settle Percival concluded his
meal, and after surveying with fondly pleasant regret the devastation
he had wrought, he leaned back in his chair and lighted a cigar. He was
no longer in a mood to counsel fight, even though he disliked to
submit.

"You know," he reminded Uncle Peter, "what that editorial in the Rock
Rip _Champion_ said about me when we were over there: 'We opine that
the Junior Bines will become a warm piece of human force if he isn't
ground-sluiced too early in the game.' Well--and here I'm
ground-sluiced the first rattle out of the box."

But the lawyer went over the case again point by point, and Percival
finally authorised him to make the best settlement possible. He cared
as little for the money as Uncle Peter did, large sum though it was.
And then his mother and sister would be spared a great humiliation, and
his own standing where most he prized it would not be jeopardised.

"Settle the best you can," was his final direction to Coplen. The
lawyer left them at the next station to wait for a train back to Butte.