“But their wild exultation was suddenly checked,As the Jailer informed them with tears,Such a verdict would not have the slightest effect,As the pig had been dead for some years.”LEWIS CARROLL.
“But their wild exultation was suddenly checked,As the Jailer informed them with tears,Such a verdict would not have the slightest effect,As the pig had been dead for some years.”
LEWIS CARROLL.
“Anything on this morning, Counsellor?”
The title was still music to Holden’s ears, so he smiled encouragingly at the fat reporter. In an instant a bethumbed court calendar was shoved under his nose and the reportorial pencil questioned,
“Grafton against the Milling Companies?Are you in that? Say, what’s doing there to-day? Is it any good?”
The reportorial arm was slipped confidentially through his, and Holden thus accompanied threaded his way through the crowded rotunda of the County Court House.
“Hello—must be something up in Holden’s office. Look at that leech Plimpton glued to him!”
“Yes—Grafton against The Milling Companies.”
“Good Lord! Is that on? I might as well go back to the office then. We’ll never be reached to-day.”
“That’s right. We’re not ready, so thank goodness they’re ahead of us. It’s a dandy case,—wish we had it.”
“Think I’ll stay and hear the arguments.—Old man Harter’s in fine form, they say.”
So the managing clerks talked as they leaned against the walls of the rotunda or sat upon the railing of the “Well.”
It is an interesting place that rotunda—a trifle impossible, perhaps, from an academic point of view,—but still an interesting place.
It is the big noisy ante-chamber to the stuffy court rooms of a big noisy city. It has an atmosphere of tobacco, shirt sleeves and hurry—an atmosphere of the people—its architecture is big and plain—an architecture for the people, and its dirt and smears bespeak a daily use and occupation by the people.
To the casual visitor the same persons seem to live in it all the year round. To the habitué the masses are kaleidoscopic—never and yet ever the same. Messengers,—process-servers,office boys—all the fledglings of the law gather there in groups and blow cigarette smoke into each other’s faces. Court officials loll about the railing patronising the managing clerks, who must cultivate them or yield all claims to management. Big-girthed men hold one another by watch chains and lapels and tell loud-mouthed stories of their triumphant practice. Bloated gentlemen and shifty seek out corners to breathe moist secrets into each other’s ears. But heedless of all these a hurrying crowd is ever streaming this way and that—here a haggard face and there a laughing one—now a brutal type and now a mask of breeding—so they go—shuffle, shuffle, click-a-clack, all day long, outside the halls of Justice.
Holden pushed open the swinging doors labelled
SPECIAL TERMPART I.
and entered a small court room crowded to suffocation. Every seat was occupied and men were standing about everywhere—jammed in between the chairs—plastered against the wall—crushedagainst the rail. The counsels’ table and its two chairs were the only unoccupied bits of furniture in the room.
The Court criers glanced despairingly at the throng and shouted mechanically, “Gentlemen will please take seats!” and then, more hopefully, “Gentlemen will please stop talking!”
But the babel of conversation was finally hushed by an attendant who announced the entrance of the Judge by pounding with an ample fist upon the panels of a door. Not a very dignified heralding of the presence of the Court, but understood by the late comers whose view is limited to the judicial canopy—that pall-like canopy of red rep which sets one panting to gaze with relief at the steam-screened windows. They at least are wet.
“Graftonvs.The Milling Companies!”
Holden fought his way like a foot-ball player through the “rush line” of lawyers, and as he pitched into the cleared space before the counsels’ table his impulse was to dodge the one man before him and race down “the side-line.” But he checked himself in time. Then two other young men plunged into the open and stood somewhat breathlessly before the Bench.
“If it please the Court,” began Holden, “this is a motion in a case of great importance and——”
“All cases are equally important in this Court, Sir!”
“I recognise that, your Honour, but I was about to say——”
“Well, well, never mind! Are you ready?”
“Yes, Sir, but I was about to tell your Honour——”
“That’ll do, Sir!”
“That Mr. Harter, who is to argue this motion, thinks it will take till recess.”
“Ah, Mr. Harter? Well, his opinions are interesting, of course, but not quite conclusive on this Court. Not necessarily conclusive. Eh?”
A titter from the crowd acknowledged this retort. Is there anything so irresistibly infectious as the wit of the Bench?
The other young men then came to the rescue of their fellow clerk. This is such an old, old play that every one knows his cue.
“Col. Partridge thinks he will need half an hour, your Honour.”
“Col. Partridge? Ah,—well,—what does the other side say?”
“Mr. Coates thinks he will take twenty minutes more.”
“Um—Mr. Coates? Tell—er—tell Mr. Harter I’ll take it up as soon as the cases ahead of it are disposed of. No cases afterGraftonvs.The Milling Companieswill be heard before two o’clock.Mortonvs.Sheldon, are you ready?”
“The defendant’s Counsel has just stepped into the hall. If your Honour will hold it a moment——”
“This Court waits for no one, Sir. Its time belongs to the People. Motion dismissed.Vonevs.Taunton. What’s that about?”
“It’s a motion to change the place of trial, if the Court please.”
“Well, hand in your papers.”
“But I’d like to be heard, your Honour. This means much to my client.”
“Now, Mister,—er—Mister—er—Counsellor, what is the use of arguing that? I know all about it—I have hundreds of such cases—and seldom grant them. Hand up your papers.”
“Will not the Court allow me——”
“No, Sir; no, Sir! That’ll do! Hand up your papers.—Graftonvs.The Milling Companies!Ah, Mr. Harter; good-morning, Sir. Officer, get Mr. Harter a chair. Good-morning, Colonel Partridge, how are you to-day, Sir? We are all ready now, I think, Mr. Coates? Yes? Well, no other cases will be heard this morning.”
And the Judge leans back in his comfortable swing-chair, and beams in courteous attention upon the distinguished counsel.
“If the Court please,” begins Mr. Coates, “this is a case of great importance——”
Yes, his Honour knows its importance. He has gathered this from the retainer of Messrs. Harter and Partridge and Coates, and the reporters know its importance as they scribble on their pads, and the newspaper artists know it as they sketch illustrations for the “story,” and the Court officials know it reflecting his Honour on the Bench. But the one who knows it best of all is the grey-haired plaintiff, Grafton, who sits behind Mr. Harter and listens with a puzzled air to the learned arguments.
To Grafton the case was indeed important. It involved all he had in the world. It had seemed a simple case to him when he first brought it to his attorney, but matters hadnot gone smoothly from the start. Delay and postponement were followed by more delay and further postponement.
“The defendants were putting up a stiff fight,” his attorney told him. What about? Well, they had “demurred,” or “counterclaimed,” or “made a motion,” or “appealed,”—had done some of these things, or all of them—goodness knows just what—it was not very clear.
Why couldn’t his case be tried? Well, they were “stayed by appeal,” or “enjoined pending a motion,” or were “stricken off the calendar.” Some of these things, or all of them, had happened. “But the fact was,” his attorney told him, “the defendant’s Counsel stood in too well with the Court—he really ought to retain Mr. Harter.”
So Mr. Harter was retained, and the case bristled with nice legal points and pretty questions of practice, to the utter amazement of Grafton, who blindly stumbled along in the ruck of the legal battle, hopelessly confused and growing daily more and more anxious, like the suitor inJarndycevs.Jarndyce.
But such a case asJarndycevs.Jarndycecould never happen in New York, because, asany lawyer can tell you, there is no Court of Chancery, or anything like——
Well, there is no Court of Chancery.
The argument of Mr. Coates was ably sustained, and Mr. Harter’s reply was so masterly that Col. Partridge said in his rejoinder that nothing but his knowledge of the law kept him from being persuaded.
The Court laughed, and the officials laughed, and the listening Bar laughed. Everyone laughed except Grafton, who had no sense of humour, anyway.
But at last it was over.
“Well, Mr. Grafton, I hope you are satisfied—I feel sure his Honour was with us.... Holden, hand up your brief.... It was very good, Sir.... Mr. Grafton, this is young Mr. Holden of our office who wrote the brief for you on the motion to-day—and wrote it well, too.”
Holden blushed like a school-girl as he shook Mr. Grafton’s hand. It was no small thing to be praised by Mr. Harter at any time, but about “Graftonvs.The Milling Companies,” it was positive distinction.
Mr. Harter was right about the Court being with him, for the plaintiff won that motion.
He was right again in the two appeals which followed the decision. He was right on several other like occasions and won no less than six different motions and five appeals by the end of the next three years.
But the case didn’t get to trial.
It was then that Grafton began to grow surly and instead of congratulating Mr. Harter on his triumphant practice, snapped out that such practice made perfect fools of honest men.
Which was decidedly ungrateful as well as impolitic.
However, he sensibly gave up trying to follow the maze of procedure, and hammered away with expostulation and question at the fact that the case wasn’t tried.
With less wisdom he took to talking about the litigation with his friends and neighbours—with lawyers at the Club—with officials in the Court—with clerks in the office—with anyone and everyone who would listen, until he bored them beyond politeness and began to get snubbed. But the case itself was less interesting than at first. Almost all the fine points of “practice” had been exhausted and only the dry fodder of facts remained.
Harter hadn’t appeared in Court with it formany a day and plainly intimated that he’d retire altogether if Grafton didn’t stop boring him. But in Holden the plaintiff always had an interested listener. Ever since the morning when Mr. Harter had praised his work Holden had studied the case in every phase and knew its every detail. So when, a few months after he set up in practice for himself, Grafton brought him all the papers and made him his sole attorney, Holden knew no words with which to express his thanks.
He had always despised the flagging interest of his seniors. Doubtless they had done their best—Mr. Harter and the attorney, but despite their fruitless efforts he felt his ability to push the matter to a successful issue. It was a great case, and there was his chance, and into it he threw himself with all the splendid enthusiasm of his youth and strength. He pressed his adversaries this way and that, worried them with unending work and harassed them with ceaseless attack until he saw his case actually set down for trial on “a day certain.” Then his excitement knew no bounds. He worked hour after hour with Grafton’s witnesses, prepared schedules and accounts, compiled digests of testimony and indices of all the papers, madehimself an expert bookkeeper and a master-expert on every detail of Grafton’s business. He raised every question that legal ingenuity could conjure up, and every quibble that cunning could devise and met them in his trial-brief—the work of months of careful study. There was no suggestion of a defence which was not ferreted out and run down by question and answer—no technicality neglected, until at length even Grafton laughingly protested.
“My dear boy, let’s leave it alone now! There’s no one can beat you on either the facts or the law.”
But Holden wouldn’t leave it alone. They were already talking about the approaching trial in the rotunda, and this was his start in life. So night and day he studied and planned with the increasing confidence which comes of perfect preparation.
At last they were in the Court crowded with witnesses, counsel, litigants and reporters.
Would there be another adjournment? Not if he could help it, and Holden squared his jaw and looked determination at the veteran Mr. Coates.
“Graftonvs.The Milling Companies—How long will that take?”
“About two days—your Honour, I think.” Holden’s voice fairly faltered as he answered glancing at the witnesses clustered near him and the immense pile of books and papers.
But Mr. Coates did not dissent. He was ready.
At last! At last they were at trial.
“Then no other matters will be heard to-day.Graftonvs.The Milling Companies. Proceed with your case, Sir.”
But Mr. Coates had arisen and was addressing the Court.
“I think it only right to say to your Honour that I shall not interpose any defence in this action. The Milling Companies made an assignment last night, and I only represent the Assignee. The gentleman will, of course, take our default, but I should hardly think he would occupy the whole day.”
Holden stared silently at the speaker. The familiar scene darkened, faded, disappeared and flared up in a new light completely transforming it—a strange room with strange people—a stage setting in the white unmasking light of day.—A mocking face leered at him from a raised dais—mocking figures elbowed him with impatient scorn—mocking fingerspointed at him with derisive joy—fat clammy hands touched his breast and pushed him from the rail over which he glared with the most desperate hatred known to the world—the hatred of a man against mankind.
Then someone burst out laughing.
“What does he mean, Holden?”
Grafton’s voice sounded a mile away, but the words of Belden, Coates’ clerk, were clear enough as he whispered in Holden’s ear:
“Wasn’t it great? Kept you all off for over three years without a ghost of a defence! Our people only wanted time to get things fixed and we got it for them all right enough, I guess. Give you a dime for your judgment! I tell you——”
But Holden suddenly struck Belden across the mouth and was promptly adjudged guilty of contempt of Court.—Of which the payment of his fine did not purge him, an order of the Court to the contrary notwithstanding.
This story will not be understood by half the people who read it and the other half will not believe it, so it should be perfectly innocuous.
Hartruff, it is true, took offence when Norris told it in his presence,—but trust Norris for picking out the hundredth man. He has about as much tact as Hartruff has conscience, so they are admirably adapted for mutual misunderstanding.
They encountered in the smoking-room of the Equity Club after lunch, where the usual number of lawyers were gathered to bore one another with dissertations on their respective cases. One can sometimes obtain useful information by listening to a good deal of tiresome boasting, but the real reward for enduring long blasts of someone else’s horn is, of course, the privilege of blowing your own. Norris, however, cared nothing for performances of this kind, and the first professionaltoot was, as a rule, the signal for his departure.
The man who doesn’t boast is apt to be popular, but the man who won’t listen to boasting is invariably disliked. Norris was not popular, and the loudest performers hinted that he hadn’t any practice to talk about. What induced him to depart from his usual custom on this particular occasion I do not know, unless, as I have said, it was his fatal genius for picking out the hundredth man.
Groton had been discoursing for twenty minutes on his triumphant progress through a case with which all his hearers were supposed to be familiar—for Groton thinks a breathless world watches his career—when he happened to mention somebody as being of “no political importance.”
“There isn’t any such person,” interrupted Norris.
Groton stopped and looked at the speaker in surprise.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you, Groton,” continued Norris, “I’ve a bad habit of thinking aloud. Go on with what you were saying.”
Groton resumed his recital, and when atlast his story reached the Court of Appeals and the final discomforture of all his opponents he turned indulgently to Norris.
“And now tell us, Norris, why you say there is no one politically unimportant.”
“I was thinking of an experience Jack Holcomb had a few years ago——”
“Yes?”
“You remember Jack Holcomb—don’t you? No? Well, he practised here for many years. He wasn’t much of a lawyer, but he had the faculty of making his clients believe he was, which is quite as effective. Barney McCarren was introduced to him by some real-estate broker, and though any lawyer could have accomplished what Holcomb did for McCarren, yet such was his way of doing it that the man swore by him ever afterward.
“Barney McCarren was the proprietor of two or three little oyster-stands in the lower part of the City. As may be imagined he was not a person of any great wealth. He was of so little prominence in the down-town ward where he had lived all his life, that even his immediate neighbours only knew him as a quiet, self-supporting man, who devoted himself to his family and interfered with no one.
“Well, McCarren came to Holcomb one day some years ago and said that a judgment had been entered against him by the District Attorney’s office on a forfeited bail bond. It appeared that one of his neighbours had been arrested for assault, and Barney, having a small piece of real estate, became bail for him. When the case was called for trial, however, the prisoner failed to appear, and consequently McCarren’s small property was in peril. High and low he searched for his principal, but a month elapsed before Barney chanced upon the fellow. They saw one another at the same moment, and instantly a chase began, which lasted until the fugitive tripped on the Canal Street car tracks and McCarren fell on top of him and hauled him to the nearest police station. A little later the man was put on trial and acquitted, and at that stage of the proceedings Barney sought Holcomb’s aid. The matter was, of course, a very simple one, and Holcomb assured his client he would have the property cleared of the judgment forthwith. To this end he prepared the proper papers, which, as you know, include a receipt from the Sheriff showing payment of all the fees of that official.
“Holcomb therefore looked up the matter in the Code and found the proper fee was fifty cents. Then he went to the Deputy in charge of the case and presented the certificate for signature, at the same time tendering the statutory amount. The man read through the papers and then pointed to the money Holcomb had placed on the table.
“‘What’s that for?’ he asked insolently.
“‘It’s your fee,’ explained Holcomb.
“‘It ain’tmyfee.’
“‘Well, what is your charge then?’
“‘Fifty dollars, I guess—about fifty dollars.’
“‘You are very much mistaken. Here is the section regulating the matter.’
“‘Aw, what do I care about the statue?—The fee’s fifty plunks I tell yer!’
“‘And I tell you, my friend, I will not pay it!’ answered Holcomb, growing angry at the man’s insolent manner. ‘I will pay you half a dollar and not one cent more.’
“‘Then yer don’t get the certif. See?’
“‘I’ll see that I get it at once and teach you a lesson at the same time!’
“Holcomb swung angrily out of the room and made straight for the Sheriff’s privateoffice. He knew the Sheriff well, and handing his card to the door-keeper was immediately ushered into the room, where he reported the actions of the Deputy. The Sheriff was indignant and rang the bell sharply.
“‘Send Mulqueen to me at once.’
“Mulqueen reported immediately and as soon as he had entered the room and closed the door the Sheriff turned on him angrily.
“‘What does this mean, Mulqueen? Here is Mr. Holcomb, who says you demand $50 for a matter covered by a fifty-cent charge. You must be crazy, man! What do you mean by it?’
“‘Fifty dollars is the fee—Sheriff,’ answered the man sullenly.
“‘It is not, Sir! I have looked at the Code, which Mr. Holcomb says he showed you. Make out the certificate instantly, and I’ll take up your case later.’
“‘Can I speak to you for a moment—Sheriff?’ asked the Deputy.
“‘Yes—go ahead,’ snapped the official.
“Holcomb moved to the window to be out of hearing, and the man shuffling up to the desk whispered a few words in the Sheriff’s ear. When the lawyer looked into the room againthe Deputy had disappeared and the Sheriff was gazing at the pattern of the rug under his desk.
“‘I’m awfully sorry, Holcomb,’ he began, without looking at his visitor, ‘but I find—but the fact is,—the Deputy is quite right. The fee is—is fifty dollars.’
“Holcomb stared at the official in amazement.
“‘The Deputy right!’ he exclaimed after a pause. ‘Why, what’s the matter with you, Townly? Here’s the law—you just quoted it yourself!’
“‘I know, I know,’ muttered the Sheriff, turning his head and gazing out of the window, ‘but I was mistaken—I find I was mistaken.’
“‘But I am not mistaken,’ persisted Holcomb. ‘You must be bewitched! I don’t understand.’
“‘Well, don’t try to, old man. I’d do anything for you—you know, but I can’t do this.’
“‘I don’t want you to do anything for me!’ interrupted Holcomb, indignantly. ‘I only want you to enforce the law as you find it, and not——’
“He paused, feeling that he might say too much.
“‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ murmured the Sheriff, impatiently, ‘I’d do anything to oblige, but really, this time——’
“Holcomb gazed at the man in silence for a moment—nodding his head in comprehending pity and contempt, and left the room without another word.”
—“When did you say your friend dreamed all this rot?”
It was Hartruff who roughly interrupted the story.
At the sound of his voice Norris turned his gaze toward the window, and continued looking out of it while he answered slowly:
“Why do you think he dreamed it? Have you heard the rest of the story?”
“No—but anyone can see what’s coming.”
“Is it such an every-day affair with you? So much the less reason for thinking Holcomb dreamed it.”
Hartruff laughed contemptuously.
“O, well, never mind—go on with your tarradiddle.”
“You will pardon me then for telling whatmust, of course, be commonplace to a member of the General Committee?”
“O, go to the devil!”
“You forget yourself, my dear Hartruff. Why direct me to headquarters, when his deputies are members of decent down-town clubs?”
“Come, come, gentlemen,” interposed Lawton, “this is going too far.”
“Precisely what I just remarked to Hartruff,” drawled Norris.
Hartruff saw the smile on the faces of the company, and rose from his seat.
“I will leave this gentleman to continue his pipe-dreaming, advising him, however, that it is a dangerous practice.”
“Is that a warning, Hartruff? If so, write it out, please. Those warnings always look so much fiercer in mis-spelled words signed with crosses. But I forget, your Organisation never puts itself on paper.”
“No—but it puts itself on record!”
“Makes its mark, you mean? Well, that’s merely a defect of early education, easily overcome with men like you to guide its fist.”
“Take care you don’t feel the weight of it.”
“My dear Hartruff, haven’t they taught you yet to keep your teeth on your temper? Really, you’ll never rise from the ranks unless you learn to smile and smile and,—well—you’d better learn to smile.”
Hartruff turned on his heel, strode to the door and slammed it behind him.
“When Holcomb left the Sheriff,” continued Norris calmly, “he promptly sent for his client Barney McCarren and explained the entire situation to him. McCarren expressed no surprise, but when Holcomb announced his intention of bringing mandamus proceedings to compel the Sheriff to give the required certificates, Barney laid a protesting hand on his counsel’s arm.
“‘Shure ’tis no use, Counsellor,’ he said. ‘I was afraid you couldn’t do anything, but I knew if you couldn’t, nobody could.’
“‘What do you mean by its being “no use”—and why should you “be afraid”? I’m going to get out papers this instant and show those fellows up.’
“‘Please don’t do it, Sir. At least not until I come again.’
“‘For goodness’ sake, why not, man? It shan’t cost you a cent.’
“‘It isn’t that, Sir. But—well—I shouldn’t have troubled you—I might have known——’
“‘Might have known what?’
“‘That they’d lay for me.’
“‘Why?’
“‘For not attending meetings at the Club.’
“‘What Club?’
“‘The District Club.’
“Then it came out, bit by bit, that McCarren had been a ‘regular’ in the Organisation and a member of the District Club. During the last year, however, he had wearied of the proceedings and had absented himself from the meetings. At the last election he hadn’t voted. The District Leader had spoken to him once jokingly about his absence from the meetings, and once, not jokingly, about his absence from the polls.—‘I knew they had it up for me,’ concluded McCarren resignedly.
“‘Well, don’t you let them frighten you, Barney. I’ll soon show them they can’t play with the law.’
“‘You mustn’t do it, Sir. You really mustn’t do it.’
“Holcomb argued and expostulated at length. He explained to his client that the Courtswould not permit such violations of the law, and that the legal proceedings would be free of cost. He showed him that prompt action would not only gain him his rights, but would make them respected in future. He urged his personal and professional interest in the matter and begged his client to take action. But all in vain. McCarren knew he’d win the lawsuit—but there were his oyster-stands for which licenses were necessary. He’d like to stand up for his rights—but he wanted his children to get into the schools next Fall. He knew how Mr. Holcomb felt about the matter—but it helped out for his wife to continue as janitoress of the tenement where they lived.—In a word there were a hundred points where the Powers could and would reach him. He couldn’t afford it!
“Holcomb looked hopelessly at his client, and seeing the disappointment in his face, McCarren tried to soften the effect of his decision.
“‘Wait—just wait a few days, Sir. Then maybe I’ll come and see you about it again.’
“At the end of a week he came.
“‘Will you take up that matter again, Mr. Holcomb?’ he said, ‘Try it once more justas though’—he hesitated a moment—‘just as though I hadn’t asked you before.’
“Holcomb ‘took it up again’ with the same papers he had prepared the first time, and called on the Sheriff’s deputy.
“‘I want a receipt for your fees in this case,’ he said, laying the papers before the official and placing a fifty-cent piece on his desk.
“The man read the papers slowly, thoughtfully inserted the date and blotted the ink. Then he signed the Sheriff’s name by his own and handed the papers to Holcomb.
“‘There ain’t no fees in this case,’ he said, as he pushed the fifty-cent piece toward the lawyer.
“‘I think you are mistaken. There is the statutory fee on ‘entering execution.’’
“’There weren’t nothing done in this case.’
“‘No?’
“‘No.’
“‘Thank you.’
“Holcomb entered the proper order and returned to his client.
“‘How did you do it, Barney?’ he asked.
“‘How did I do it, Sir?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘I didn’t do anything.’
“‘But why was it matters went so smoothly to-day? You must have used some influence.’
“‘No, Sir,—that is—well,—I think the Leader saw me at Tuesday’s meeting, Sir.’”
Young Hudson was the first to break the silence which followed Norris’ recital.
“I’ve always said,” he began, “that some of the most annoying things in practice come from the obstinacy of clients. Now I had a case——”
“If a man wants to get blackmailed,” interrupted Harlow, “there’s no law in the land to prevent or protect him.”
“I guess Holcomb put on too much ‘side’ with that deputy,” commented Truslow. “Those fellows are easy enough to handle if you only go about it in the right way. Now I had occasion one time to need——”
“I don’t believe any Sheriff would make such a break as to call down a deputy without inquiring about the inside facts,” interrupted Patton. “You take my word for it, Norris, there’s something wrong with that story.”
Norris looked straight at the speaker.
“You’re right,” he answered, “there is something wrong with that story.”
“I knew there was. What?”
“The dates and the names. It happened yesterday and I was the lawyer. I told it to you men because you’re Members of the Bar, interested in the administration of justice and the maintenance of law. I’m glad I did so, if only to learn we’re so accustomed to such things nowadays that we see nothing in them but the obstinacy of clients and the need of jollying petty officials. Isn’t it a pretty commentary that the only doubt cast upon the truth of this story is that the Sheriff should have failed to inform himself of the conspiracy? Such things are going on every day and we wink at them if we don’t actually aid and abet them to facilitate our private business. A fearful tyranny sways this whole city, clutching or shadowing the tenements, brutalising the prisons, frustrating the laws—wasting the treasury—corrupting the courts—and we not only suffer it, but we tolerate the men of education who associate themselves with such work—allow them to be members of our clubs and degrade ourselves until——”
“Say—old man—hire a hall for next Tuesday evening and I’ll take a ticket. Honest I will. But I’ve got to leave you now and get back to work.”
Lawton rose and smiled good-naturedly at Norris, whose crimsoned face bespoke repentance of his sudden outburst.
The other members followed Lawton’s example, and soon there was no one left in the room except Norris and “Silent” Bancroft.
For some moments neither man spoke. Then Bancroft rose and rolling his cigar between his fingers thoughtfully studied its glowing ashes.
“Say, Norris,” he began slowly, “do you—do you attend primaries?”
“Er—no.”
“Um,—I thought not,” remarked the old gentleman as he walked toward the door.
It had been snowing ever since the Buffalo express left New York, but the Pullman car passengers, comfortably housed, were no more conscious of the weather than they were of each other. When the train stopped unexpectedly at a flag station, the whispering of the snowflakes against the window-panes made itself heard, and the presence of the passengers made itself felt. The car instantly became a room whose occupants discovered one another at the same moment, and sat staring into each other’s faces with all the gloom of fellow-patients in a doctor’s office. The silence was embarrassing and absurd. A nervous passenger coughed to relieve the tension, and felt himself flushing under the concentrated attention of the entire company. A woman leaned forward to speak to her neighbour, but stopped as though conscious of some indecorum. Then everyone sat perfectly quiet, and theslow throb of the engine was the only sound from the frosty world outside.
At last the conductor opened the door, and the passengers gazed at him as if they had never seen his like before. When he stamped the snow off his feet they watched him with a charmed intensity. When he spoke they started perceptibly.
—“Anybody named Glenning in this car?”
—“Yes—here.”
All eyes centred on the speaker, a middle-aged, well-dressed, commonplace man occupying a corner chair.
—“A telegram for you, Sir.”
Mr. Glenning slowly adjusted his glasses, peered at the address on the yellow envelope, took a penknife from his pocket and cut the flap with great deliberation.
The passengers watched his face with the breathless interest of an audience viewing the climax of some mighty drama where every movement of the actors must be noted. But Mr. Glenning read the message without the slightest change of expression.
“If you want to send an answer you can do it. We wait here for a few minutes longer.”
“I’ll tell you in a moment.”
Mr. Glenning took from his vest-pocket a small, red book with indexed margin, opened it about the middle, ran his finger down the edge, stopped toward the foot of the page and said:
“No answer. Any charge? No? Thank you.”
The audience gave vent to its relief in a relaxing stir and rustle. Mr. Glenning picked up his newspaper and began to read. The engine whistled two sharp warnings, the wheels slipped once or twice on the icy rails, the whispering of the snowflakes hushed and the inmates of the flying Pullman once more forgot each other.
When the train reached Albany the last passenger to leave the car picked up the telegram which Mr. Glenning had crumpled and thrown upon the floor. But his curiosity was only partly satisfied by reading:
Mr. John Glenning,Passenger on No. 44.Effervescent Albany.
Mr. John Glenning,Passenger on No. 44.Effervescent Albany.
Had he possessed Mr. Glenning’s code he would not have been much wiser, for the translated message simply read as follows:
The party wanted is in Albany.
Messrs. Constable, Glenning and Hertzog were engaged in the general practice of the law, but Hertzog was the only lawyer in the partnership. The others were merely members of the Bar.
Mr. Constable’s aptitudes lay in the line of drumming up business. He was known, although he did not know it, as the “barker” for the firm. He belonged to eight clubs; he was identified with fourteen charities, among which he counted three chairmanships; he was in the vestry of a prosperous church and on the Visiting Board of two hospitals; sixteen corporations published his name as a director, and the same sixteen acknowledged his firm as Counsel. Mr. Constable was in the public eye.
Mr. Glenning was not in the public eye, but he had its ear, provided public was spelled with a capital P and the right political party was in power. Mr. Glenning had been a member of the firm for twenty years, which proved that the right political party generally was in power. What his functions were no one seemed to know, but unquestionably he was avery busy man. A very serious, earnest believer too in his profession was Mr. Glenning, and impatient of the silly slights and slurs ever ready on the tongues of the outsiders. Thus when an alleged wit said something about “more cases being decided at the trench than at the Bench,” Mr. Glenning, who dined more with the Judges and knew them better than any other man in town, snubbed the speaker and disposed of his remark as “a sneer of the unsuccessful.”
Everybody understood Hertzog’s work. It used to be said that his two best clients were Constable and Glenning, but then people are always saying bitter things for want of better.
Mr. Constable was a florid-faced, white-whiskered, well-dressed little man, bright, quick and full of energy. There were those who considered him pompous, and it is true he regarded himself very seriously. But most people took him at his own estimate. In the outer office his manner was sharp, short and decisive; in the inner office he was silent, impressive and indecisive. That is to say he listened thoughtfully, earnestly, sympathetically, intelligently, comprehendingly—in any and every way that inspires confidence, but noone ever lured him into expressing an off-hand opinion. His decisions were always “decisions reserved.”—“Reserved for Hertzog,” muttered “the unsuccessful.”—But luckily Mr. Constable never heard them, for, like Mr. Glenning, he was intolerant of flippancy in every form. He was also intolerant of details.
If anything went wrong in the office Mr. Constable shook off all responsibility for it. “That is a detail of which I know nothing,” was his ever present phrase in time of trouble, and this, accompanied by a wave of his hands, cleared the atmosphere in his vicinity. A detail in Mr. Constable’s meaning was anything uncomfortable to remember. “That is a detail with which I do not charge my memory,” he would say, and he was never contradicted.
There was no firm in the city more prominent than Constable, Glenning and Hertzog, and none more highly esteemed. Possibly Mr. Constable emphasised this a little too often, but perhaps his insistence impressed some of the very people who pretended to laugh at it. “A firm of our standing,” was another of his pet phrases, and on this he rang thechanges with such genuine pride that those who did not envy readily forgave him the touch of conceit.
Still there were those who would not have grieved had the firm lost its standing in the Hydroid Fibre case. But the mud there only reached Horton, the office Notary Public, and he went to Sing Sing for his cleansing.
It was at the annual meeting of the great Hydroid Fibre Co., during a bitter fight for control, that one of the stockholders repudiated a proxy bearing his name and carrying votes in favour of Mr. Constable. The signature was an evident forgery, and ugly things were said. Horton, the Notary Public who had witnessed the paper and taken the signer’s “acknowledgment,” was sent for, but could give no adequate explanation.
Mr. Constable, though dumfounded at the disclosure, acted with commendable promptness. He instantly ordered the arrest of Horton and silenced accusation by placing himself in the hands of his counsel, Mr. Hertzog, and demanding an investigation. This inquiry clearly demonstrated that Mr. Constable controlled more votes than were necessary without the disputed shares. Horton swore that thebogus stockholder had been properly identified, and claimed that he had been artfully imposed upon, but of this there was absolutely no proof. Not a trace of the swindler could be found.
But the firm did not rest satisfied with this vindication. A clerk in the office had proved untrustworthy, and of him it was determined to make an example.
The District Attorney’s office was not a little proud of the short work it made of Horton’s case, and Messrs. Constable, Glenning & Hertzog, each in his own way, complimented the officials on having promptly closed what threatened to be quite a scandal, involving the fair name of the firm.
But Horton’s case would not stay closed, and it was that which was “effervescing.”
Horton’s counsel, Barton Mackenzie, was one of those irrepressible persons who answer defeat with defiance, and gather courage with every fresh discouragement. But Mackenzie built up a record of disaster in Horton’s case which surpassed anything he had ever experienced before. He was defeated before the Police Magistrate and Horton was held for the Grand Jury, which promptly indicted him on half a dozen different charges. At the trial the presiding Justiceruled steadily against him, and the verdict of the jury adjudged his client guilty. Another judge refused a “certificate of reasonable doubt,” and Horton went to Sing Sing with his case still on appeal. Eight weeks slipped by and then the Appellate Division affirmed the conviction. Three months later Mackenzie argued his client’s cause before the Court of Appeals in Albany, but Horton had served nearly six months of his sentence before that tribunal decided he had been legally convicted. This brought Mackenzie to a stand-still for a while, though Hertzog thought he recognised his hand in the subsequent badgering of Mr. Constable and the Hydroid Fibre Co.
One of those insignificant five-share stockholders, the pest of every corporation, began to worry the company with ceaseless questions, demanding every possible privilege accorded by the statutes. Who he was, or how he got his shares, was a detail of which Mr. Constable regretfully admitted “he knew nothing,” and Glenning, exploring every underground passage known to politics, could not run the thing to earth.
This irrepressible shareholder examined thelist of stockholders, obtained statements of the treasurer, called for papers and particulars, and made a general nuisance of himself. His specialty, however, was interviewing President Constable. Hardly a week passed without his calling on this official.
“Here’s that five-share man again,” Mr. Constable would say, slipping into Mr. Hertzog’s private room. “Shall I see him?”
“Of course—see him.”
“You will—er—drop in?”
“No—confound it! You’ve seen him with me often enough. What have you got to worry about?”
“Nothing. Nothing, of course—but——”
“Well, see him!”
Then Mr. Constable gaining confidence from his Hebrew partner’s shrewd face would answer decisively:
“Very well, I will see him.”
But in his own private office the President would be apt to run his fingers along the inside of his collar, as though it choked him, muttering, “Damn this business!” before he pushed his bell and ordered in his visitor.
Mr. Constable was subjected to another constant annoyance. Several of the daily papersinvariably coupled his name with some reference to the Horton case. A paragraph announcing his election to a trusteeship would identify him as “the President of the Hydroid Fibre Co., who recently had a most unfortunate experience with a Notary Public now serving sentence in Sing Sing.” Or, if his name appeared in some list, the paragrapher would add: “Mr. Constable, it will be remembered, disposed of quite a serious charge in the Hydroid Fibre matter, some of the parties now being in Sing Sing.”
It was incessant, intolerable, and intangible.
But one evening, in an after-dinner chat, Mr. Glenning had a short, whispered conference about the matter with a city official, and the city official dropped a hint next day to his advertising agent which must have reached the city editors, for the “squibbing” stopped. However, when Mr. Constable resigned from the Presidency of the Hydroid Fibre Co., the paragraphers took occasion to revive the whole story.
Then, as though tired of being in the public eye, Mr. Constable began to resign his trusteeships one after another, until his partners took alarm and vigorously protested.
“I’m not well,” he answered, “and I don’t want so much responsibility.”
“But what about the business?” suggested Mr. Glenning.
Then Mr. Constable astounded them.
“Let me retire,” he answered wearily.
But Mr. Constable’s partners did not propose to have the business sacrificed in any such way. They would not hear of his retirement, and when he insisted, Mr. Hertzog remarked very pointedly that he did not presume to understand this gentle resignation business, but if there was any little game on hand he proposed to be in it for the next three years at least. About money matters Mr. Hertzog cherished no illusions, and at the word dollar Hester Street instantly reclaimed him.
There was no “little game,” Mr. Constable hastened to assure him. It was simply that he could not do justice to the firm or himself. He was a sick man—a very sick man.
“Then take a vacation. Go into the country and stay as long as you like, but drop this retirement nonsense,” commanded Mr. Hertzog, and the senior partner turned away wearily without another word.
“It’s the reaction after that cussed Hortonaffair,” Mr. Glenning remarked; “he was snappy enough about that until Mackenzie was finally knocked out, but since then he’s drooped. Reaction, I suppose—don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Hertzog was seldom more than monosyllabic, but his eyes followed the wilted little figure of his partner with more anxiety than the word implied. Alone in his private room he frowned, muttering to himself:
“Reaction—yes or action.—Costing us thousands of dollars anyway. Confound the little fool!”
Mr. Constable’s physician recommended rest and a complete change of scene. With all the world to choose from, the patient made a peculiar selection for his place of sojourn. It was Sing Sing, on the Hudson. But Mr. Constable strictly complied with the Doctor’s advice in not allowing anyone to know his address.
There is not much to be seen in Sing Sing except the State Prison, but Mr. Constable saw that very thoroughly. For two days he spent all the time allotted to visitors in making himself acquainted with convict life. He waswriting a novel, he told the Warden, and wanted local colour. No—he did not know any one in the prison—he was an Englishman, and only on a visit to this country. Would he like to make a tour of the buildings with the Warden? Nothing, he declared, would give him greater pleasure—he was interested in every detail. So, escorted by the Warden, he passed through the clean, well-aired corridors, inspected the orderly kitchens and the huge laundries, viewed the immense workshops filled with convicts toiling in splendid, disciplined silence, watched the men file to their meals, their hands hooked over one another’s shoulders, their heads bent down, eyes upon the ground, bodies close together, and their feet keeping time in the lock-step prescribed by the regulations.
It was all very impressive, he told the Warden—a wonderful triumph of system and discipline. He congratulated the official, and was invited into the private office for a smoke and chat.
Did the Warden suppose there were any innocent men in the cells? Very likely there were some—it was not uncommon for prisoners to have new trials granted them, and occasionallya man would be acquitted on these second trials. Did many of the men return after serving sentence? Yes, a good many. Why? Well, principally, the Warden supposed, because it was hard for an ex-convict to get an honest job after he got out. “Damned near impossible, unless he has mighty good friends,” the official added feelingly.
Was not that a reflection on the system? Well, the Warden wasn’t there to pass on that—the Prison Association had undertaken to handle the question, but he couldn’t see that they’d done much with it.
But the innocent men—the men who were afterwards acquitted—they would be—they were not ex-convicts? No, the Warden guessed they were all right. And the pardoned ones? The Warden smiled.
“I’m not very strong on pardons myself,” he admitted. “I’d about as soon employ an out-and-outer. Too much politics in pardons for me. Moreover, sometimes they’re not appreciated. We had a queer fellow here once who served five years, and was a model prisoner too. Well, when he was discharged someone met him at the station with a pardon from the Governor. ‘You cur,’ heshouted at the man who handed it to him, ‘get pardons for those who need them!’ With that he tore the paper into bits, threw the pieces in the man’s face and gave him a terrible thrashing. We never learned what the trouble was, though the fellow served two more years for the assault. But some of us thought he must have been innocent all the time. However, when he came out again nobody offered him another pardon.”
The next day Mr. Constable visited the prison without the escort of the Warden. In the work-rooms the silence of the workers oppressed him, but it was better than the language of some of the under-keepers which fairly sickened him. He had heard foul-mouthed men hurl epithets and profanity back and forth often enough, but never before had he seen the frightful answers which human beings can make without the utterance of a syllable. Many times that day he saw murder done with the eyes—the foulest, fiercest, most glutting murder of which the human heart is capable. In every regulation he saw manhood debased, individuality destroyed, education neglected, reformation defeated, and glancing from the faces of the convicts to those of thekeepers, he could not say which this “splendid system” had most brutalised.
Then Mr. Constable returned to his cheerless room at the hotel and locking himself in, lay down on the sofa, only to offer his body as a pavement for files of close-cropped and shaven men who passed over him with the steady tramp-tramp, tramp-tramp of the lock-step, stamping him into the ground gladly and sternly, gloatingly and viciously—deeper and deeper, until he felt the damp earth upon his face and heard less and less clearly the tread of those marching feet.
Then it ceased altogether and Mr. Constable smiled in his sleep as he dreamed he was dead, only to awake with a shriek when he felt that he was living.
The next morning the Warden met him on the street.
“How’s the local colour getting on?” he asked pleasantly.
“I was working with it all last night.”
The Warden stared silently at the speaker for a moment, frowned slightly and passed on.
“Good God!” he muttered to himself, “if it makes a man look like that to write, I never want to read again.”
Mr. Constable left Sing Sing for Niagara, where he stopped long enough to write a letter in the public writing-room of an hotel. The composition of this missive, however, consumed several hours, for the writer kept glancing apprehensively over his shoulder and when anyone approached the table he covered his paper with the blotter and waited until he was alone again. But when at last the letter was finished he omitted to sign it, which was the more neglectful since no one could possibly have recognised the shaky handwriting as that of the snappy, energetic, confident Mr. Theodore Constable. Even the clerk in the New York Post Office who handled the envelope cursed the writer as he puzzled out the address.
Mr. Constable next visited Detroit presumably for the sole purpose of dictating curious statements to the hotel typewriter. These he mailed to New York with some enclosures, addressing the envelopes in large, childish capitals.
The rest of his vacation was spent in the bedroom of a second class boarding-house in Chicago.
At the end of three weeks he returnedto New York looking far worse than when he went away. Mr. Hertzog therefore hesitated to tell him that Horton had moved for another trial on newly-discovered evidence.
But the matter could not be kept secret, for Horton’s counsel had done more than claim he could prove his client’s innocence; he not only produced one or two strikingly significant exhibits received anonymously from Detroit, but also asserted he was daily obtaining clues from unknown friends in other cities which might lead to the discovery of a conspiracy, if not to the conspirators themselves.
Even a careless student of human nature must have observed the marked change which had taken place in Mr. Constable.
The lines that come gradually with age and experience give meaning and character to the face—even the traces of illness are not without a certain dignity. But when care begins to crease the face of self-complacence its effects are distortions, terrible as those which some iron implement of torture would suddenly produce.
Mr. Constable’s florid countenance was without a line until it was wrinkled and furrowed and scarred.
Mr. Hertzog was shocked by the appearance of his partner. Was the man going mad? He had seen such changes foreshadow insanity. But if he was going mad—from what cause? He must make sure.
Mr. Constable sat in the junior partner’s private office reading a copy of the affidavits supporting the latest move in Horton’s long fight, and Mr. Hertzog watched him. He noted that the trembling hands left little spots of perspiration on the pages, he saw the twitching lips every now and then forming words—he counted the rapid throbbing of the arteries in head and neck. All this he had expected and discounted, but he was unprepared for the horrid look of cunning in the man’s eyes, as he glanced up from his reading.
For a few moments neither of the partners spoke. Then Mr. Constable broke the silence.
“You think—you would say these papers were—that they made a strong case?”
Mr. Constable’s eyes were fixed upon his partner in anxious inquiry, like a sick man waiting the decision of a doctor testing the heart or lungs.
“Yes, it’s strong. Too damned strong.”
The answer given slowly and with emphasis was received with a smile such as the face of a dead man might attempt with cracking skin and snapping muscles.
“And the papers—are they—should you say they were well drawn?”
“Yes—that fellow Mackenzie seems to have learned something during these years—damn him! By the way, how long did he get?”
“Who?”
“Horton, of course.”
“Three, I think—yes, it was three years.”
“Then he’s served two years and—let’s see—two years and three months.”
Mr. Hertzog pushed the electric button in his desk. “Get me the Revised Statutes covering Sing Sing regulations,” he said to the boy who answered the summons. The book was brought and Mr. Hertzog began studying its pages, his head resting on his hands and his elbows on the desk. For five minutes—ten minutes, there was silence.
“Don’t let’s take up this thing, Hertzog—I think—I think he’ll win.” Mr. Constable’s voice was almost a whisper.
But Hertzog, engrossed in the volume beforehim, did not hear. Mr. Constable glanced at the stern Hebraic face, flushed and changed his remark to a question.
“Do you think he’ll win?”
The junior partner started up nervously.
“How the devil can I tell!” he burst out angrily. “What’s the use of sitting there parroting ‘Do-you-think-he-can-win? Do-you-think-he-can-win?’ He’s got a damned good case on the merits. There’s something in the Code that may fix him, but I don’t count on it. Don’t ask such idiotic questions. Of course I think he can win, but I also think he mustn’t. If you want my opinion”—Mr. Hertzog swung himself about and cast a searching glance at the shrivelled, mean little figure crushed into the leather easy-chair beside him. “If you want my real opinion, Constable,” he repeated, “I think we’vegotto win. Haven’t we?”
For a moment Mr. Constable stared silently at his partner. Then shaking his head he mumbled a word or two, stopped, put his hand to his throat, began again, stammered a disjointed sentence and suddenly poured forth a torrent of confused and incoherent words that thickened into a clotted gurgle and freed itselfin a sputter swelling to peal upon peal of hideous, shattering, mirthless laughter—laughter which forced the man to his feet and rocked him with its spasms.
Hertzog leaped toward the door and fastened it. The clerks must not hear the horror of this. Then he darted to the window, but by the time he had closed it the laughter had died out, and Constable was quivering upon the floor, the blood gushing from his mouth.