“State the situation now, Izaak Walton,” he commanded.
“State the situation now, Izaak Walton,” he commanded.
“State the situation now, Izaak Walton,” he commanded.
Billion Bradlee, whose nod shook Wall Street; Judge Carroll, who, with his associates, decided every day vast questions of national commerce; and the two powerful railway men listened with careful attention. The four pair of keen eyes were fixed onthe boy’s face. The boy went on. His whole personality was focussed now on his argument, and, though in the vague margin of consciousness there might have been a knowledge of the incongruity between such an audience and a case in a law-school moot court, yet the glow of his intense interest in his affair reduced such thoughts to a dim fringe. The boy went on, unembarrassed, throwing his free power into his statement.
“You see, sir—you see, Judge Carroll, the act of 1898 speaks of ‘common carriers by railroads, while engaged in commerce between any of the States,’ being liable to any employee for injuries while ‘employed by such carrier in such commerce.’ The fact of contributory negligence does not bar a recovery in such actions.”
Conway Fitzhugh, who handled railroads in three States, spoke consideringly. “It’s an interesting question. I believe it has never been decided,” he said, and the president of the I. S. I. & O. Z. D. followed him up quickly.
“Possibly there has been no final test case. But if such a position as Mr. Vance sets forth is maintained—if the brakeman could recover—then thereis no such thing as the domestic trade of a State. Congress may take the entire control of the commerce of the country.”
Bradlee, leaning back in his chair, laid down his knife and fork, and the perfectly cooked bird on his plate was left untasted. His keen blue glance swept across the table to Jack’s face. Jack, bright-eyed, flushed, slashed off a manful bit of partridge and stowed it away before he answered.
“There’s that view of it, sir, of course,” he answered the mighty Howell respectfully but firmly—and Bradlee chuckled. He remembered a fishing lesson up a little lost river and the odd sensation of being talked to as a novice. He wondered how Howell would take these fearless tactics. The lad went on: “But there’s a good deal of authority on the other side. ‘The Constitution gives Congress plenary power to regulate interstate commerce,’ you see—doesn’t it, Judge Carroll? I think that’s a quotation from one of your opinions, sir. And you may use the analogy of the Safety Appliance act—under that it has been held that a railroad wholly within a State, not even touching the boundary line, may beengaged in interstate traffic. Then there was an example—let’s see—what was that?—it was a perfect peach,” mused Jack, and the four dignitaries waited, regarding him seriously. “Oh, yes—I know,” he flashed at them joyfully. “You’ll remember this, of course, Judge Carroll. The Senate was monkeying with the question—I mean to say, the question arose in the Senate. Senator Bacon supposed a case—he said, take a purely local train from Richmond to Alexandria. Clearly that train would not be engaged in interstate commerce. A trainman injured must sue under the Virginia law. Now suppose a man at Orange Court House puts on a box of cigars consigned to Baltimore—does that immediately change the character of the train? After that may a trainman injured sue under the United States act? Senator Dolliver seemed to believe he could.”
With that there was a battle of the gods. Even Bradlee dropped his spectator’s attitude and descended into the arena, for the point was one which held a vital interest for each of the four, and the lad had opened the ball with a dance of distinguished authorities. Moreover, he had the literature of thequestion at his fingers’ ends, and his shining spear, bright and new, flashed back and forth in the thick of the fray so readily, so accurately, that no thought of difference in age entered the minds of the older men any more than it did his own. It was suggestive of certain remarks of Kipling’s calling attention to the fact that
“There is neither East nor West nor border nor breed nor birthWhen two strong men meet face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.”
“There is neither East nor West nor border nor breed nor birthWhen two strong men meet face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.”
“There is neither East nor West nor border nor breed nor birthWhen two strong men meet face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.”
“There is neither East nor West nor border nor breed nor birth
When two strong men meet face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.”
So the four captains of industry, men at the very crest of international careers, and the lad not yet at the beginning of his career, bringing only his eager brain and hard-won young knowledge and the tremendous impulse of his enthusiasm, debated together as equals and gave and took pleasure and strength. And the boy soaked in experience and ideas at every delighted pore, till at last the lunch was over, and Jack, due at an engagement, had to leave before the grandees, and stood up to say good-by. In his manly, boyish way he expressed his appreciation of their help, and, as he towered above them all in his youngvigor and bright good looks, each one felt, perhaps, that he had unconsciously given as much as he had gotten, and that an impulse of generous new life had swept like a rushing wind into the world-worn minds from his contact.
“I can’t begin to thank you, sir,” he said, his hand in his host’s, and Bradlee’s arm across his shoulder half-caressingly. “I can’t possibly tell you how I’ve enjoyed it. It’s been simply great. I—I’ve never had such a bully time in my life,” he exploded, and the others laughed quiet little laughs of older men, but their eyes were very friendly as they looked at him.
“We shall be interested to hear if you win your case,” the mighty autocrat Howell said. “Bradlee must let us know.”
“Send me a telegram, Jack,” ordered Bradlee.
“I sure will,” promised Jack heartily, “if you’d like it, sir,” and, flushed and radiant and smiling, was gone.
About four o’clock the door in Jim Fletcher’s room up-town—where a club of three law-students held their meetings for study, and where the confrèrefrom Cambridge was expected this afternoon to battle with them over a special question—opened, and three bent heads lifted from a table littered with papers and legal-looking volumes to regard Jack Vance.
“Come in,” Fletcher threw at him. “You’re late. We’re half through. What are you grinning about?”
Jack shut the door inside with an air of reserved electricity which arrested the workers at the table. He came and stood over them and they all stared up at him; there appeared to be something to wait for.
“Gee!” spoke Jack at last. “Guess whom I’ve been lunching with.”
Carl Harrison drew a law-book toward him. “Don’t care,” he stated with disapproval. “Get to work, Jack; we’ve got a tough one on to-day.” But Joe Lewis and Jim were interested.
“What’s up?” Joe asked. “Get it out of your system, Johnny. Who?”
Jack stuck a thumb in each waistcoat pocket and looked “chesty.” “Oh,” he flung at them casuallywith his lips pursed and his eyes dancing. “Nothing uncommon. I simply lunched at the Lawyers’ Club down-town with four of me pals—Billion Bradlee—W. R. H., you know, the railroad king, and Judge Carroll, of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the president of the I. S. I. & O. Z. D., Mr. Howell, and Conway Fitzhugh, the Southern railway magnate—just us five, that’s all. We had some business to talk over.”
And Jack, grinning consumedly, agitating his fingers from the thumb fulcrums, posing his slim figure as near as might be to resemble a bay-windowed alderman, grinned more and watched the effect.
“Come off,” responded Jim Fletcher.
“Stop your monkey-shines,” said Carl.
But Joe Lewis asked curiously: “What do you mean, Jack? Give us straight dope.”
And with that Jack, chuckling very much, told the tale, to the wonder and amusement and awe of the three lads. And then, with a dizzying shift from boyishness to the stress of the battle of life, the shouts of laughter and light-hearted chaffing stoppedshort, and the four bent, grave and responsible, over the law-books, and the work of the day went on.
And the days went on and the Harvard Law School and its events went on, varying from mere recitations to trials in the moot courts, till a Thursday came, three weeks after the luncheon at the Lawyers’ Club. There was an important meeting that day in the impressive offices of W. R. H. Bradlee. People had travelled from long distances to that meeting; there was a man there from Texas, and Hugh Arkendale had come from San Francisco on purpose, and Conway Fitzhugh had left his home in New Orleans two days before for it. Bradlee, opening the meeting, was making a short speech setting forth its purpose and importance. He had just begun when a rap came at the door. Every one looked up in astonishment; these men were as unaccustomed to being interrupted in their councils as the gods of Olympus.
“Come,” thundered Bradlee in a terrible voice, and an alarmed clerk slid hurriedly in and held out a telegram.
“Orders”—he murmured—“any message from”—and the name was a gurgle and the clerk bolted.
Billion Bradlee flopped the paper open, and, as if a bar of rollicking sunlight had broken into the dull atmosphere, his face lit up, as he read it, with a smile, a most unfitting smile. His clear, keen blue eyes flashed about the company a second, and then, like a boy, quite unlike a great financier plying his mighty trade, he tossed the yellow scrap to Fitzhugh.
“Good news,” he spoke—he was shaking a bit with inward laughter, it seemed. “Read that, Conway.”
The bald-headed general counsel of four railways put on his glasses, while the rest of the august company watched him and waited curiously. With careful, deliberate enunciation, in a businesslike tone and manner, the general counsel read aloud—a picked company of the most important men in America listening—these somewhat bewildering words:
“Landed my trout Scarlet Ibis top of the heap glory be won every blamed thing sure am grateful to you and high mucky-mucks kindly pass on thanks and accept most.
J. C. Vance.”
There was a momentary astonishment on the face of Conway Fitzhugh as he stared over the yellow paper at Bradlee; the varied expressions of surprise on the dozen faces of the other men were a psychological assortment; Fitzhugh suddenly arrived with a jostle of quick laughter.
“Oh—that boy!” he said, and handed the telegram back across the table. “That delightful boy—I’m glad he won his case. Give him my congratulations.”
“A youngster—a friend of mine—and of Fitzhugh’s—” Bradlee explained vaguely to no one in particular, but the smile and the look of clean pleasure were still there, and every one felt at once as if a draught of sweet air had found its way into the room and had refreshed them.
“Now, gentlemen,” said W. R. H. Bradlee, “as I was saying—”