he was too “weak” to resist. Then the Judge suggested Golden; they would help him there, all right, to stay. The Major received the suggestion thoughtfully. He raised objections which the Judge answered, but they separated with- out a decision, and the Judge says that for a week or two he and the Major weighed ponderously the mighty question, till in the end the Major agreed that perhaps he’d better go up to Golden and be helped to cure that moving-about attack and thus learn to “stay put.” That’s how the Major came to go to Golden, and that’s how he won the rank and title which the “movin’-about” world had given him as a “little shaver.”
And that’s the spirit in which the Judge in chambers persuades boys to “ snitch up ” on themselves and look upon the reformatory as a help. As they begin to tell him things bit by bit, he expresses no horror, only understanding; he sympathizes with a feller. If a kid describes how he saw an easy chance to steal and not get caught, the Judge exclaims: “Gee, that was a chance. That’s certain. But ’tain’t square, Hank.” “Mistake” after “mistake” is confessed, “weakness” after “weakness”; no crimes, you understand, for the kid and the Judge, they see things through the kid’s eyes, with all the mitigating circumstances. And so they come to discuss the question whether
