JUDGE GREY
On Friday, after Jim Weeks had told Harvey that he was free to go to
Truesdale, he followed the young man almost fondly with his eyes and he
did not at once resume the work which awaited him. For Harvey's request
had set him thinking. During years that passed after the day when he
took his last drive with Ethel Harvey, he had not dared to think of her.
Later when he heard of her death, he did not try to analyze the impulse
which led him to offer a position to Harvey. As he grew to know the
young fellow he gradually admitted to himself his fondness for him, and
now that he believed that Harvey was in love, he allowed himself for the
first time the luxury of reminiscence.
The old Louisville days came back to him when he and Ethel rode together
through country lanes and he loved her. The wound was healed; it had
lost its sting a score of years ago, but his mood was still tender, and
as he stared at the pile of papers on his desk, thoughts of C. & S.C.
were far away. At last, however, the consciousness of this came upon
him and he thought, “I reckon I need exercise,” and then a moment
later, “It'll be quite a trick, though, to find a horse that's up to my
weight.”
He had hardly taken up his work when Pease appeared and told him that
a man wanted to see him. The man was a deputy sheriff, and he came to
serve on James Weeks the injunction which Judge Black had signed in
Porter's office two hours before.
It may be that his earlier mood had something to do with it; for as Jim
laid the paper on his desk, his thoughts went back half a century to one
of his boyhood days. It was a summer afternoon, and Jim and some of his
friends had been in swimming; somehow it became necessary for him to
fight Thomas Ransome. Jim had never been in a fight before, and he had
no theories whatever, but he found that he could hit hard, and it never
occurred to him to try to parry. Thomas was forced to give back steadily
until his farther retreat was cut off by the river and he saw that more
vigorous tactics were required. With utter disregard of the laws of
war he drove a vicious kick at Jim's stomach. Had it landed, its effect
would probably have been serious, but Jim, for the first time since the
fight began, stepped back, and with both hands gave additional impetus
to the foot, so that Thomas kicked much higher than he had intended, and
losing his balance, he toppled into the river with a very satisfactory
splash.
Jim smiled at the recollection and then read the injunction again to see
if it were possible to catch Porter's foot. His eye rested long on the
sputtery signature at the bottom, and he thought, “I might have known
that Porter wouldn't go into this business without owning a Judge.”
He put the paper in his pocket, then locked his desk, and with a word
to Pease he left the office. Jim dined down town, and not until after
dinner did he think of Harvey and his leave of absence. He would need
his secretary to-morrow, and it would not do to have him out of reach.
But the moments of reminiscence that afternoon came to Harvey's rescue,
and Jim in the most unbusinesslike way decided to get on without his
secretary. “He can't go through that but once,” thought Jim.
He left the restaurant and walked rapidly to the Northern Station,
and for the second time that week the Northern Limited took Jim to
Manchester.
Jim was going to see Judge Grey. He had already decided what he wanted
the Judge to do; whether he could get him to do it was another question,
which Jim was going to put to the test as soon as possible.
The trains on the Northern in coming into Manchester run down the middle
of one of the main business streets, and engineers are compelled by city
statutes to run slowly. As the Limited slowed down, Jim walked out on
the rear platform and stood gazing at the brightly lighted shop windows.
At an intersecting street he saw a trolley car waiting for the train to
pass; the blue light it showed told Jim it was the car he wanted, so
he swung quickly off the train and stepped aboard the car as it came
bumping over the crossing. It was evidently behind its schedule, for
once on clear track again it sped along rapidly. A man was running to
catch the car, and Jim watched him with amused interest. At first he
gained, but as the speed of the car increased he gave up the race; but
he had come near enough for Jim to recognize him as the man who had
dined only a few tables from him that evening in Chicago and who had
sat a few seats behind him on the Limited. Jim smiled. “They're mighty
anxious to know what I'm doing,” he thought.
Judge Grey did not go away on vacations. He was a homely man, with a
large family, and he took serious views of life. He was country bred,
and he had never outgrown a certain rusticity of appearance. It was said
that his wife always cut his hair, and the concentric circles made by
the neatly trimmed ends lent verisimilitude to the tale that she began
at the crown with a butter dish to guide her scissors, then extended the
diameter of her circle by using next a saucer, and last a soup bowl.
The Judge greeted Jim warmly, invited him into the library, and sat down
to hear what he had to say. Jim told him almost without reservation the
story of the fight for the possession of M. & T., beginning with his
large investment in the road and his election to the presidency of it.
He did not try to make a good story; he told what had happened as simply
and briefly as possible, and he interested Judge Grey. Part of it was
already known to him, and part filled in gaps in his knowledge. To him
it was the story of an honest struggle for something worth struggling
for. When it came to the latest move, and Jim without comment handed him
Black's injunction, the Judge's wrath flamed out.
“That's an outrage!” he exclaimed. “It's just a legal hold-up.”
“Possibly,” said Jim. “It was the best move they could make, though.
But,” he went on after a short pause, “I've got the right in this
business, and I want you to help me.”
“You want me to dissolve the injunction, I suppose,” said the Judge,
cautiously.
“No,” said Jim. “I don't. Just the other way. I'd like you to issue an
injunction that will go a little farther.”
There was another short pause, and then Jim began explaining his
plan. As he explained and argued, the fire, which had been crackling
cheerfully when he came in, flickered more and more faintly, and it was
but a fading glow when that most informal session of the Circuit Court
in chancery sitting came to its conclusion.
“That's all right, then,” said Jim at length, rising as he spoke.
“Yes,” said the other. “We'll do it that way. Are you going right back
to Chicago, Mr. Weeks?”
“No,” said Jim. “I shall be here for some time. From now on this fight
will be along the line of the road.”
Mr. Wing was oppressed by a sense of his office boy's superiority. He
read disapprobation in the round-eyed stare, and even the cut-steel
buttons, though of Wing's own purveying, seemed arguslike in their
critical surveillance. He would have abolished them had he not felt that
the boy would understand the change. If the boy had only forgotten to
copy letters or had manifested an unruly desire to attend his relatives'
funerals, his employer would have been a happier man. As it was, he felt
apologetic every time he came in late or went out early.
The directors' meeting which Porter and Thompson had decided upon
on Friday was to take place the next afternoon in Wing's office; so,
contrary to the little man's custom on Saturday afternoons, he returned
thither after lunch.
Porter and Thompson were already there, and the former was giving
the Vice-President his last instructions, with the evident purpose of
stiffening him up a bit. For Thompson seemed to need stiffening badly.
One by one, and two by two, the directors came straggling in, and
presently Porter, with a parting injunction to Thompson, left the room
and crossed over to McNally's office, where his lieutenant was waiting
for him. There they plotted and planned and awaited the result of the
directors' meeting across the hall.
In Wing's office the meeting was about to begin. It was easy to
distinguish between Jim's friends and the C. & S.C. people; for the
former, a doleful minority, were crowded in one corner doing nothing
because there was nothing they could do, while on the other side of the
room were the gang, with Thompson in the centre, talking in low tones
over the programme of the meeting. There seemed to be no hope whatever
that the President would be able to save himself, for his opponents
had a clear majority of two, and they were met to-day to press this
advantage to the utmost. Had Jim been there at hand, his cause would
not have seemed to his friends so desperate, for it was hard, looking at
him, to imagine him defeated; his very bulk seemed prophetic of ultimate
victory. But Jim was not there; he was not even in Chicago.
There was one man in the minority group who seemed somewhat less
cheerless than his companions. When they asked him what hope there was,
what way of escape he saw, he could not answer, but he still professed
to believe that the President's downfall was not so imminent as it
seemed. And the thought that perhaps this one man knew more than he
could tell kept the minority from becoming utterly discouraged. The
foundation for his hopes lay in a telegram he had received that morning
from Jim, which read, “_Don't get scared, everything all right._”
Evidently Jim was not submitting tamely, but whatever was going to
happen must happen soon if it was not to be too late, for Thompson was
already calling the meeting to order. As the directors seated
themselves about the long table and listened to Thompson's opening
remarks,--Thompson liked to make remarks,--it seemed that for once in
his life Jim was beaten.
At that moment, in the arched entrance to the Dartmouth, a man whose
damp forehead and limp collar bore witness that he was in a hurry,
turned away from the wall directory he had been scrutinizing and entered
the nearest elevator.
“Six,” he said. Once on the sixth floor he looked about for a minute
or two and walked into the outer office where Buttons was on guard,
demanding audience with Mr. Wing.
“Mr. Wing is in,” said the boy, “but he is engaged and can't be
disturbed.”
“They're here, are they?” said the man. “Well, I want to see Mr. Wing
and Mr. Thompson and Mr. Powers.”
“But you can't see them,” was the answer. “There's a directors' meeting
in there.”
“In there, eh?” said the man, and without further parley with Buttons,
he entered the room indicated, closing the door behind him.
Meanwhile Porter and McNally in the other office were discussing
probabilities and possibilities and thinking of a good many others which
neither of them cared to discuss, though all were in their way pleasant.
Suddenly they were interrupted by the apparition of Buttons. His eyes
were rounder than ever, and his white hair looked as though some one had
tried to drag it out of his head.
“Please, sir,” he gasped, “Mr. Thompson wants to see you right away.”
Porter jumped to his feet and fairly ran out of the room. As he turned
into the hall a muffled uproar greeted his ears, and it made him hurry
the faster. But McNally stayed where he was. He, too, heard the strange
noise, but he felt that he would not be able to do any good by going in
there. McNally did not “come out strong” amid scenes of violence. His
heart troubled him.
It was not more than five minutes before Porter came back. His face was
a study.
“They're raising hell in there,” he said. “Weeks's judge has just served
an injunction that kicks Thompson and Wing and Powers off the board.
Thompson just curled up,--he was almost too scared to breathe,--and Wing
seemed to be having some sort of a fit. There was one idiot up on the
table yelling that the meeting was adjourned and trying to give three
cheers for Weeks.” (It was the man with the telegram.)
“Well,” said McNally, “what's going to happen next?”
“I don't know,” said Porter, breathlessly. “I don't see that anything
can happen. As things stand now there isn't a quorum of directors and
all the officers are suspended. The road can't do business.”
Suddenly he leaned forward in his chair and exclaimed:--
“By George, if that road doesn't need a receiver, no road ever did.
Telephone Judge Black quick. We'll get in ahead of Weeks this time.”
There was no delay in finding the Judge. Porter had indicated to him
the advisability of keeping himself on tap, as it were, and he was now
prepared to settle with neatness and despatch the legal affairs of his
employers. Before dark that afternoon he had regularly and with all
necessary formality appointed Frederick McNally to be receiver for the
Manchester & Truesdale Railroad Company.
But it was significant of Jim Weeks's foresight that the road already
had a receiver, for at that very moment he had in his pocket an order
from Judge Grey appointing Harvey West to that position.