Many and fantastic are the illusions the human animal, in its ignorance
and its optimism, devises to change life from a pleasant journey along a
plain road into a fumbling and stumbling and struggling about in a fog.
Of these hallucinations the most grotesque is that the weak can come
together, can pass a law to curb the strong, can set one of their number
to enforce it, may then disperse with no occasion further to trouble
about the strong. Every line of every page of history tells how the
strong--the nimble-witted, the farsighted, the ambitious--have worked
their will upon their feebler and less purposeful fellow men, regardless
of any and all precautions to the contrary. Conditions have improved
only because the number of the strong has increased. With so many lions
at war with each other not a few rabbits contrive to avoid perishing in
the nest.
Norman's genius lay in ability to take away from an adversary the legal
weapons implicitly relied upon and to arm his client with them. No man
understood better than he the abysmal distinction between law and
justice; no man knew better than he how to compel--or to assist--courts
to apply the law, so just in the general, to promoting injustice in the
particular. And whenever he permitted conscience a voice in his internal
debates--it was not often--he heard from it its usual servile
approbation: How can the reign of justice be more speedily brought about
than by making the reign of law--lawyer law--intolerable?
About a fortnight after the trifling incident related in the previous
chapter, Norman had to devise a secret agreement among several of the
most eminent of his clients. They wished to band together, to do a thing
expressly forbidden by the law; they wished to conspire to lower wages
and raise prices in several railway systems under their control. But
none would trust the others; so there must be something in writing, laid
away in a secret safety deposit box along with sundry bundles of
securities put up as forfeit, all in the custody of Norman. When he had
worked out in his mind and in fragmentary notes the details of their
agreement, he was ready for some one to do the clerical work. The some
one must be absolutely trustworthy, as the plain language of the
agreement would make clear to the dullest mind dazzling opportunities
for profit--not only in stock jobbing but also in blackmail. He rang for
Tetlow, the head clerk. Tetlow--smooth and sly and smug, lacking only
courageous initiative to make him a great lawyer, but, lacking that,
lacking all--Tetlow entered and closed the door behind him.
Norman leaned back in his desk chair and laced his fingers behind his
head. "One of your typewriters is a slight blonde girl--sits in the
corner to the far left--if she's still here."
"Miss Hallowell," said Tetlow. "We are letting her go at the end of this
week. She's nice and ladylike, and willing--in fact, most anxious to
please. But the work's too difficult for her. She's rather--rather--well,
not exactly stupid, but slow."
"Um," said Norman reflectively. "There's Miss Bostwick--perhaps she'll
do."
"Miss Bostwick got married last week."
Norman smiled. He remembered the girl because she was the oldest and
homeliest in the office. "There's somebody for everybody--eh, Tetlow?"
"He was a lighthouse keeper," said Tetlow. "There's a story that he
advertised for a wife. But that may be a joke."
"Why not that Miss--Miss Halloway?" mused Norman.
"Miss Hallowell," corrected Tetlow.
"Hallowell--yes. Is she--_very_ incompetent?
"Not exactly that. But business is slackening--and she's been only
temporary--and----"