It was by a mere accident that I went West, some years ago, and settled
in an active and thriving town near one of the Great Lakes. The air and
bustle and smack of life about the place attracted me, and I rented an
office and continued to read law, from force of habit, I suppose. My
experience in the service of one of the most prominent of New York
lawyers stood me in good stead, and gradually, in addition to a
heterogeneous business of mines and lumber, I began to pick up a few
clients. But in all probability I should be still pegging away at mines
and lumber, and drawing up occasional leases and contracts, had it not
been for Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, of Philadelphia. Although it has
been specifically written that promotion to a young man comes neither
from the East nor the West, nor yet from the South, Mr. Cooke arrived
from the East, and in the nick of time for me.
I was indebted to Farrar for Mr. Cooke's acquaintance, and this
obligation I have since in vain endeavored to repay. Farrar's profession
was forestry: a graduate of an eastern college, he had gone abroad to
study, and had roughed it with the skilled woodsmen of the Black Forest.
Mr. Cooke, whom he represented, had large tracts of land in these parts,
and Farrar likewise received an income from the state, whose legislature
had at last opened its eyes to the timber depredations and had begun to
buy up reserves. We had rooms in the same Elizabethan building at the
corner of Main and Superior streets, but it was more than a year
before I got farther than a nod with him. Farrar's nod in itself was
a repulsion, and once you had seen it you mentally scored him from
the list of your possible friends. Besides this freezing exterior he
possessed a cutting and cynical tongue, and had but little confidence in
the human race. These qualities did not tend to render him popular in a
Western town, if indeed they would have recommended him anywhere, and
I confess to have thought him a surly enough fellow, being guided by
general opinion and superficial observation. Afterwards the town got to
know him, and if it did not precisely like him, it respected him, which
perhaps is better. And he gained at least a few warm-friends, among whom
I deem it an honor to be mentioned.
Farrar's contempt for consequences finally brought him an unsought-for
reputation. Admiration for him was born the day he pushed O'Meara out
of his office and down a flight of stairs because he had undertaken to
suggest that which should be done with the timber in Jackson County. By
this summary proceeding Farrar lost the support of a faction, O'Meara
being a power in the state and chairman of the forestry board besides.
But he got rid of interference from that day forth.
Oddly enough my friendship with Farrar was an indirect result of the
incident I have just related. A few mornings after, I was seated in my
office trying to concentrate my mind on page twenty of volume ten of
the Records when I was surprised by O'Meara himself, accompanied by
two gentlemen whom I remembered to have seen on various witness stands.
O'Meara was handsomely dressed, and his necktie made but a faint
pretence of concealing the gorgeous diamond in his shirt-front. But his
face wore an aggrieved air, and his left hand was neatly bound in black
and tucked into his coat. He sank comfortably into my wicker chair,
which creaked a protest, and produced two yellow-spotted cigars, chewing
the end of one with much apparent relish and pushing the other at me.
His two friends remained respectfully standing. I guessed at what was
coming, and braced myself by refusing the cigar,--not a great piece of
self-denial, by the way. But a case meant much to me then, and I did
seriously regret that O'Meara was not a possible client. At any rate, my
sympathy with Farrar in the late episode put him out of the question.
O'Meara cleared his throat and began gingerly to undo the handkerchief
on his hand. Then he brought his fist down on the table so that the ink
started from the stand and his cheeks shook with the effort.
“I'll make him pay for this!” he shouted, with an oath.
The other gentlemen nodded their approval, while I put the inkstand in a
place of safety.
“You're a pretty bright young man, Mr. Crocker,” he went on, a look of
cunning coming into his little eyes, “but I guess you ain't had too many
cases to object to a big one.”
“Did you come here to tell me that?” I asked.
He looked me over queerly, and evidently decided that I meant no
effrontery.
“I came here to get your opinion,” he said, holding up a swollen hand,
“but I want to tell you first that I ought to get ten thousand, not a
cent less. That scoundrelly young upstart--”
“If you want my opinion,” I replied, trying to speak slowly, “it is that
Mr. Farrar ought to get ten thousand dollars. And I think that would be
only a moderate reward.”
I did not feel equal to pushing him into the street, as Farrar had done,
and I have now but a vague notion of what he said and how he got there.
But I remember that half an hour afterwards a man congratulated me
openly in the bank.
That night I found a new friend, although at the time I thought Farrar's
visit to me the accomplishment of a perfunctory courtesy to a man who
had refused to take a case against him. It was very characteristic of
Farrar not to mention this until he rose to go. About half-past eight
he sauntered in upon me, placing his hat precisely on the rack, and we
talked until ten, which is to say that I talked and he commented. His
observations were apt, if a trifle caustic, and it is needless to add
that I found them entertaining. As he was leaving he held out his hand.
“I hear that O'Meara called on you to-day,” he said diffidently.
“Yes,” I answered, smiling, “I was sorry not to have been able to take
his case.”
I sat up for an hour or more, trying to arrive at some conclusion
about Farrar, but at length I gave it up. His visit had in it something
impulsive which I could not reconcile with his manner. He surely owed
me nothing for refusing a case against him, and must have known that my
motives for so doing were not personal. But if I did not understand
him, I liked him decidedly from that night forward, and I hoped that his
advances had sprung from some other motive than politeness. And indeed
we gradually drifted into a quasi-friendship. It became his habit, as
he went out in the morning, to drop into my room for a match, and I
returned the compliment by borrowing his coal oil when mine was out.
At such times we would sit, or more frequently stand, discussing the
affairs of the town and of the nation, for politics was an easy and
attractive subject to us both. It was only in a general way that we
touched upon each other's concerns, this being dangerous ground
with Farrar, who was ever ready to close up at anything resembling a
confidence. As for me, I hope I am not curious, but I own to having had
a curiosity about Farrar's Philadelphia patron, to whom Farrar made
but slight allusions. His very name--Farquhar Fenelon Cooke--had an odd
sound which somehow betokened an odd man, and there was more than
one bit of gossip afloat in the town of which he was the subject,
notwithstanding the fact that he had never honored it with a visit. The
gossip was the natural result of Mr. Cooke's large properties in the
vicinity. It has never been my habit, however, to press a friend on such
matters, and I could easily understand and respect Farrar's reluctance
to talk of one from whom he received an income.
I had occasion, in the May of that year, to make a somewhat long
business trip to Chicago, and on my return, much to my surprise, I
found Farrar awaiting me in the railroad station. He smiled his wonted
fraction by way of greeting, stopped to buy a newspaper, and finally
leading me to his buggy, turned and drove out of town. I was completely
mystified at such an unusual proceeding.
“What's this for?” I asked.
“I shan't bother you long,” he said; “I simply wanted the chance to talk
to you before you got to your office. I have a Philadelphia client, a
Mr. Cooke, of whom you may have heard me speak. Since you have been away
the railroad has brought suit against him. The row is about the lands
west of the Washita, on Copper Rise. It's the devil if he loses, for the
ground is worth the dollar bills to cover it. I telegraphed, and he got
here yesterday. He wants a lawyer, and I mentioned you.”
There came over me then in a flash a comprehension of Farrar which I had
failed to grasp before. But I was quite overcome at his suggestion.
“Isn't it rather a big deal to risk me on?” I said. “Better go to
Chicago and get Parks. He's an expert in that sort of thing.” I am
afraid my expostulation was weak.
“I merely spoke of you,” replied Farrar, coolly,--“and he has gone
around to your office. He knows about Parks, and if he wants him he'll
probably take him. It all depends upon how you strike Cooke whether you
get the case or not. I have never told you about him,” he added with
some hesitation; “he's a trifle queer, but a good fellow at the bottom.
I should hate to see him lose his land.”
“How is the railroad mixed up in it?” I asked.
“I don't know much about law, but it would seem as if they had a pretty
strong case,” he answered. He went on to tell me what he knew of the
matter in his clean, pithy sentences, often brutally cynical, as though
he had not a spark of interest in any of it. Mr. Cooke's claim to the
land came from a maternal great-uncle, long since deceased, who had been
a settler in these regions. The railroad answered that they had bought
the land with other properties from the man, also deceased, to whom
the old gentleman was alleged to have sold it. Incidentally I learned
something of Mr. Cooke's maternal ancestry.
We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect
of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the
first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad
gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might
have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines. A silver snaffle on a
heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy
waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie,
sufficiently proclaimed his tastes. But I found myself continually
returning to the countenance, and I still think I could have modelled a
better face out of putty. The mouth was rather small, thick-tipped, and
put in at an odd angle; the brown eyes were large, and from their habit
of looking up at one lent to the round face an incongruous solemnity.
But withal there was a perceptible acumen about the man which was
puzzling in the extreme.
“How are you, old man?” said he, hardly waiting for Farrar to introduce
me. “Well, I hope.” It was pure cordiality, nothing more. He seemed to
bubble over with it.
I said I was well, and invited him inside.
“No,” he said; “I like the look of the town. We can talk business here.”
And talk business he did, straight and to the point, so fast and
indistinctly that at times I could scarcely follow him. I answered his
rapid questions briefly, and as best I knew how. He wanted to know
what chance he had to win the suit, and I told him there might be other
factors involved beside those of which he had spoken. Plainly, also,
that the character of his great-uncle was in question, an intimation
which he did not appear to resent. But that there was no denying the
fact that the railroad had a strong thing of it, and a good lawyer into
the bargain.
“And don't you consider yourself a good lawyer?” he cut in.
I pointed out that the railroad lawyer was a man of twice my age,
experience, and reputation.
Without more ado, and before either Farrar or myself had time to resist,
he had hooked an arm into each of us, and we were all three marching
down the street in the direction of his hotel. If this was agony for
me, I could see that it was keener agony for Farrar. And although Mr.
Farquhar Fenelon Cooke had been in town but a scant twenty-four hours,
it seemed as if he knew more of its inhabitants than both of us
put together. Certain it is that he was less particular with his
acquaintances. He hailed the most astonishing people with an easy air
of freedom, now releasing my arm, now Farrar's, to salute. He always
saluted. He stopped to converse with a dozen men we had never seen, many
of whom smelled strongly of the stable, and he invariably introduced
Farrar as the forester of his estate, and me as his lawyer in the great
quarrel with the railroad, until I began to wish I had never heard of
Blackstone. And finally he steered us into the spacious bar of the Lake
House.
The next morning the three of us were off early for a look at the
contested property. It was a twenty-mile drive, and the last eight miles
wound down the boiling Washita, still high with the melting snows of
the pine lands. And even here the snows yet slept in the deeper hollows.
unconscious of the budding green of the slopes. How heartily I wished
Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke back in Philadelphia! By his eternal accounts
of his Germantown stables and of the blue ribbons of his hackneys he
killed all sense of pleasure of the scene, and set up an irritation that
was well-nigh unbearable. At length we crossed the river, climbed the
foot-hills, and paused on the ridge. Below us lay the quaint inn
and scattered cottages of Asquith, and beyond them the limitless and
foam-flecked expanse of lake: and on our right, lifting from the shore
by easy slopes for a mile at stretch, Farrar pointed out the timbered
lands of Copper Rise, spread before us like a map. But the appreciation
of beauty formed no part of Mr. Cooke's composition,--that is, beauty as
Farrar and I knew it.
“If you win that case, old man,” he cried, striking me a great whack
between the shoulder-blades, “charge any fee you like; I'll pay it! And
I'll make such a country-place out of this as was never seen west of New
York state, and call it Mohair, after my old trotter. I'll put a palace
on that clearing, with the stables just over the knoll. They'll beat the
Germantown stables a whole lap. And that strip of level,” he continued,
pointing to a thinly timbered bit, “will hold a mile track nicely.”
Farrar and I gasped: it was as if we had tumbled into the Washita.
“It will take money, Mr. Cooke,” said Farrar, “and you haven't won the
suit yet.”
“Damn the money!” said Mr. Cooke, and we knew he meant it.
Over the episodes of that interminable morning it will, be better to
pass lightly. It was spent by Farrar and me in misery. It was spent by
Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke in an ecstasy of enjoyment, driving over and
laying out Mohair, and I must admit he evinced a surprising genius
in his planning, although, according to Farrar, he broke every sacred
precept of landscape gardening again and again. He displayed the
enthusiasm of a pioneer, and the energy of a Napoleon. And if he were
too ignorant to accord to nature a word of praise, he had the grace
and intelligence to compliment Farrar on the superb condition of the
forests, and on the judgment shown in laying out the roads, which were
so well chosen that even in this season they were well drained and dry.
That day, too, my views were materially broadened, and I received an
insight into the methods and possibilities of my friend's profession
sufficient to instil a deeper respect both for it and for him. The
crowded spots had been skilfully thinned of the older trees to give the
younger ones a chance, and the harmony of the whole had been carefully
worked out. Now we drove under dark pines and hemlocks, and then into
a lighter relief of birches and wild cherries, or a copse of young
beeches. And I learned that the estate had not only been paying the
taxes and its portion of Farrar's salary, but also a considerable amount
into Mr. Cooke's pocket the while it was being improved.
Mr. Cooke made his permanent quarters at the Lake House, and soon became
one of the best-known characters about town. He seemed to enjoy his
popularity, and I am convinced that he would have been popular in
spite of his now-famous quarrel with the railroad. His easy command
of profanity, his generous use of money, his predilection for sporting
characters, of whom he was king; his ready geniality and good-fellowship
alike with the clerk of the Lake House or the Mayor, not to mention his
own undeniable personality, all combined to make him a favorite. He had
his own especial table in the dining-room, called all the waiters by
their first names, and they fought for the privilege of attending him.
He likewise called the barkeepers by their first names, and had his own
particular corner of the bar, where none dared intrude, and where he
could almost invariably be found when not in my office. From this corner
he dealt out cigars to the deserving, held stake moneys, decided all
bets, and refereed all differences. His name appeared in the personal
column of one of the local papers on the average of twice a week, or
in lieu thereof one of his choicest stories in the “Notes about Town”
column.
The case was to come up early in July, and I spent most of my time,
to the detriment of other affairs, in preparing for it. I was greatly
hampered in my work by my client, who filled my office with his
tobacco-smoke and that of his friends, and he took it very much for
granted that he was going to win the suit. Fortune had always played
into his hands, he said, and I had no little difficulty in convincing
him that matters had passed from his hands into mine. In this I believe
I was never entirely successful. I soon found, too, that he had no ideas
whatever on the value of discretion, and it was only by repeated threats
of absolute failure that I prevented our secret tactics from becoming
the property of his sporting fraternity and of the town.
The more I worked on the case, the clearer it became to me that Mr.
Farquhar Fenelon Cooke's great-uncle had been either a consummate
scoundrel or a lunatic, and that our only hope of winning must be based
on proving him one or the other; it did not matter much which, for my
expectations at best were small. When I had at length settled to this
conclusion I confided it as delicately as possible to my client, who was
sitting at the time with his feet cocked up on the office table, reading
a pink newspaper.
“Which'll be the easier to prove?” he asked, without looking up.
“It would be more charitable to prove he had been out of his mind,” I
replied, “and perhaps easier.”
“Charity be damned,” said this remarkable man. “I'm after the property.”
So I decided on insanity. I hunted up and subpoenaed white-haired
witnesses for miles around. Many of them shook their heads when they
spoke of Mr. Cooke's great-uncle, and some knew more of his private
transactions than I could have wished, and I trembled lest my own
witnesses should be turned against me. I learned more of Mr. Cooke's
great-uncle than I knew of Mr. Cooke himself, and to the credit of my
client be it said that none of his relative's traits were apparent in
him, with the possible exception of insanity; and that defect, if it
existed in the grand-nephew, took in him a milder and less criminal
turn. The old rascal, indeed, had so cleverly worded his deed of sale
as to obtain payment without transfer. It was a trifle easier to avoid
being specific in that country in his day than it is now, and the
document was, in my opinion, sufficiently vague to admit of a double
meaning. The original sale had been made to a man, now dead, whom the
railroad had bought out. The Copper Rise property was mentioned among
the other lands in the will in favor of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, and
the latter had gone ahead improving them and increasing their output in
spite of the repeated threats of the railroad to bring suit. And it was
not until its present attorney had come in and investigated the title
that the railroad had resorted to the law. I mention here, by the way,
that my client was the sole heir.
But as the time of the sessions drew near, the outlook for me was
anything but bright. It is true that my witnesses were quite willing
to depose that his actions were queer and out of the common, but these
witnesses were for the most part venerable farmers and backwoodsmen:
expert testimony was deplorably lacking. In this extremity it was Mr.
Farquhar Fenelon Cooke himself who came unwittingly to my rescue. He had
bought a horse,--he could never be in a place long without one,--which
was chiefly remarkable, he said, for picking up his hind feet as well
as his front ones. However he may have differed from the ordinary run
of horses, he was shortly attacked by one of the thousand ills to which
every horse is subject. I will not pretend to say what it was. I found
Mr. Cooke one morning at his usual place in the Lake House bar holding
forth with more than common vehemence and profanity on the subject of
veterinary surgeons. He declared there was not a veterinary surgeon in
the whole town fit to hold a certificate, and his listeners nodded an
extreme approval to this sentiment. A grizzled old fellow who kept a
stock farm back in the country chanced to be there, and managed to get a
word in on the subject during one of my client's rare pauses.
“Yes,” he said, “that's so. There ain't one of 'em now fit to travel
with young Doctor Vane, who was here some fifteen years gone by. He
weren't no horse-doctor, but he could fix up a foundered horse in a
night as good as new. If your uncle was livin', he'd back me on that,
Mr. Cooke.”
Here was my chance. I took the old man aside, and two or three glasses
of Old Crow launched him into reminiscence.
“Where is Doctor Vane now?” I asked finally.
“Over to Minneapolis, sir, with more rich patients nor he can take care
of. Wasn't my darter over there last month, and seen him? And demned if
he didn't pull up his carriage and talk to her. Here's luck to him.”
I might have heard much more of the stockraiser had I stayed, but I fear
I left him somewhat abruptly in my haste to find Farrar. Only three days
remained before the case was to come up. Farrar readily agreed to go to
Minneapolis, and was off on the first train that afternoon. I would have
asked Mr. Cooke to go had I dared trust him, such was my anxiety to have
him out of the way, if only for a time. I did not tell him about the
doctor. He sat up very late with me that night on the Lake House
porch to give me a rubbing down, as he expressed it, as he might have
admonished some favorite jockey before a sweepstake. “Take it easy, old
man,” he would say repeatedly, “and don't give things the bit before
you're sure of their wind!”
Days passed, and not a word from Farrar. The case opened with Mr.
Cooke's friends on the front benches. The excitement it caused has
rarely been equalled in that section, but I believe this was due less to
its sensational features than to Mr. Cooke, who had an abnormal though
unconscious talent for self-advertisement. It became manifest early that
we were losing. Our testimony, as I had feared, was not strong enough,
although they said we were making a good fight of it. I was racked
with anxiety about Farrar; at last, when I had all but given up hope,
I received a telegram from him dated at Detroit, saying he would arrive
with the doctor that evening. This was Friday, the fourth day of the
trial.
The doctor turned out to be a large man, well groomed and well fed, with
a twinkle in his eye. He had gone to Narragansett Pier for the summer,
whither Farrar had followed him. On being introduced, Mr. Cooke at once
invited him out to have a drink.
“Did you know my uncle?” asked my client.
“Yes,” said the doctor, “I should say I did.”
“Poor old duffer,” said Mr. Cooke, with due solemnity; “I understand he
was a maniac.”
“Well,” said the doctor, while we listened with a breathless interest,
“he wasn't exactly a maniac, but I think I can safely say he was a
lunatic.”
“Then here's to insanity!” said the irrepressible, his glass swung in
mid-air, when a thought struck him, and he put it down again and looked
hard at the doctor.
“Will you swear to it?” he demanded.
“I would swear to it before Saint Peter,” said the doctor, fervently.
He swore to it before a jury, which was more to the point, and we won
our case. It did not even go to the court of appeals; I suppose the
railroad thought it cheaper to drop it, since no right of way was
involved. And the decision was scarcely announced before Mr. Farquhar
Fenelon Cooke had begun work on his new country place, Mohair.
I have oftentimes been led to consider the relevancy of this chapter,
and have finally decided to insert it. I concluded that the actual
narrative of how Mr. Cooke came to establish his country-place near
Asquith would be interesting, and likewise throw some light on that
gentleman's character. And I ask the reader's forbearance for the
necessary personal history involved. Had it not been for Mr. Cooke's
friendship for me I should not have written these pages.