A RISING YOUNG MAN.
Mr. James Elwell was sealed in a pleasant apartment in one of the many
large apartment buildings of Chicago; the windows were open to admit
the soft evening air that blew, strong and cool, from its passage over
the great lake. The room was comfortably, even luxuriously furnished,
and James Elwell, seated in an easy-chair by one of the large windows,
with his slippered feet elevated to a comfortable degree, and a cigar
in his mouth, was in perfect keeping with the rest of the room.
Rather a handsome man was Mr. James Elwell, though the lines were
deeply graven in his face, and his dark hair was slightly streaked here
and there with gray.
He was what is generally termed a rising young man, though his friends
would have been puzzled to have told what he had risen from. All they
knew of him was that he had got on ’Change a twelvemonth before, and
had been on ’Change ever since. He had not occupied these pleasant
apartments at that time; his apartments then consisted of one room in
a South Side boarding house; but Mr. James Elwell had done a great
deal in that year. For, although he had been limited at first in his
dealings on ’Change, he had speculated with an audacity that rather
astonished the old heads.
“Too bad,” he muttered, as he impatiently knocked the ash from his
cigar; “too bad, but it’s just my luck. Now that I have fallen on my
feet for the first time in my life, I am tied up by that old business,
and likely at any time to be pulled down again.” And then a look of
pity, almost sorrow, overspread his face, and he murmured: “Poor little
thing! I wonder if she still mourns for me?”
Just then his meditations were interrupted by a thunderous knock at the
door.
He called out “Come in!” and half arose from his chair with an
expectant look upon his face, which quickly changed to one of
indifference as the intruder entered the room.
“Hello, Coleman!” he said. “What blew you around here?”
“Hello!” replied his visitor, who was a short, fat, jolly-looking
little man, with shrewd eyes and a turned-up nose. “This is a nice
state of affairs. What’s the matter? Got the blues, or only thinking of
how you’ll do them up on the board to-morrow?”
“Why, what is the matter?” inquired Elwell placidly. “Don’t things suit
you to-night?”
“No, they don’t,” replied his visitor coolly. “It never suits me to
mope, or to see my friends mope. Life is too short for that.”
“Well, you have a reputation to sustain,” said Elwell, with a touch of
contempt in his quiet tone. “Every one expects you to be a jolly dog.”
“Quite right, too,” said Mr. Peter Coleman, who was commonly called
Short, or Shorty, by his intimate friends. “I get more enjoyment out
of life in one week by being jolly, than I would in a dozen years if I
carried a face as long as some folks,” and he laughed in proof of his
assertion.
“Quite a compliment to the length of my visage, I suppose,” said Elwell
quietly.
“Well, you are a little trying at times,” admitted Coleman, with great
candor; “but you have improved greatly since I first met you.”
“Owing altogether to your good example,” replied Elwell sarcastically.
Whereat his friend removed the hat he still wore, and made him a low,
mocking bow. “What did you intend doing this evening?” inquired Elwell,
paying no attention to this ceremony.
“I did think of going to Hooley’s,” said Coleman; “but I hate going
alone, so I thought I would come and get you. After that, if I am sober
enough, I am going to study up a little.”
“I will go with you,” said Elwell, rising to get his shoes, “if only to
see that you _are_ sober enough. A little study will do you good. But
what particular case excites your attention now?”
“Oh, only a little matter of divorce,” replied Coleman, who was an
attorney with a limited practice.
Elwell was putting on his shoes. He now looked up with one shoe in his
hand.
“Divorce, did you say?” he inquired. “I don’t suppose you have much
practice in that line now?”
“By Jove! you are right there,” replied Coleman, with another hearty
laugh. “And you might have added the other lines, too, and then not
find me crowded.”
“I suppose not,” assented Elwell; “but I meant in proportion to your
other business.”
And he put on his other shoe, but with a look of deep attention.
“It is out of proportion to my other business, for I do more of it;
but you don’t always see my name connected with the cases,” replied
Coleman, with a look of great cunning.
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean, my inquisitive friend?” repeated Coleman, helping
himself to one of his friend’s cigars, “I mean that there are often
reasons for procuring a divorce _quietly_; and while the business is
too profitable for a poor devil like me to refuse, it is not exactly
the line of business that one would care to build his reputation on;
and for that reason I keep my name out of it.”
“I understand,” said Elwell. “I have seen the advertisements--divorces
obtained without publicity--but I did not think a legal divorce could
be obtained without going through a public court, and being reported in
the papers, and all that sort of thing.”
He said all of this carelessly, but still in a questioning way, and he
looked at his friend as if he expected him to continue the conversation
on the subject.
“Oh, as to the legality----” replied Coleman.
He had started as if he intended to say more; but catching the intent
look on his friend’s face he stopped, and walking to one of the
windows, stood looking out.
“Well, what about the legality?” asked Elwell, impatiently.
“There can be no question about the legality,” replied Peter, in a
peculiar tone.
“Legal, and still perfectly quiet,” said Elwell, in a musing tone,
after they had got out into the street. “Perfectly quiet, I think you
said?” turning to Coleman.
“Oh, perfectly quiet. If they could not be obtained quietly, there
would be less business in that line.”
“Ah! a strange business yours,” continued Elwell, in that same musing
tone. “You learn a great many secrets now, I suppose?”
“Yes; and keep them, too,” replied Coleman shortly.
“Keep them? Of course,” said Elwell, “that is part of your business. I
suppose we are always known to our physician and our lawyer?”
“Yes, I suppose we are,” assented Coleman, much as if he were
considering an abstract problem.
They went to Hooley’s, and from there went to several other places, but
Peter remained perfectly sober--unusually sober, in fact, and rather
taciturn--while Elwell, on the other hand, was unusually voluble.
It would have appeared even as if Mr. Elwell--rising young man as
he was--had altogether forgotten that he had started out with the
expressed idea of keeping his friend sober.
“And now we are going home to study our divorce, eh?” said Elwell, as
they stopped. He had one hand upon each of Coleman’s shoulders, and
gently rolled him back and forth, as he spoke, in a very jovial way.
“Going to get up our points, eh?”
Yes, Peter was going to take a turn at it, it appeared.
“What an industrious fellow,” continued Elwell. “And so knowing!
Now, what are the main requirements for obtaining one of those quiet
divorces?”
“Money,” responded Peter, with great promptness.
“Oh, money of course,” said Elwell, not quite so jovially. “Money of
course; but what else, now?”
“Well, with money,” replied Coleman, speaking very soberly, “there is
not much else actually necessary, excepting that one of the parties
should have continued to reside in this State for one year preceding
the application.”
Elwell said nothing more about it; but bidding his friend good-night,
entered the house, seemingly in a very pleasant humor indeed.
Peter Coleman, on the contrary, appeared to get even more sober as he
passed along the street on his way home.
And when he got there, he sat in an easy-chair, with his short legs
extended as straight as possible in front of him, his hat on the back
of his head, and his hands in his trousers pockets, and sitting thus,
he whistled softly for a short time.
At last he arose, muttering such phrases as: “Clever fellow! How well
he did it.” And “Who would have thought it!”
He retired to bed, having first congratulated himself on running onto
such a good case, and promising to “bleed” some unknown person as much
as possible.