I.

There are office buildings still standing in down-town New York where

the occupant does not merge his identity with the numerals on his door.

But they are very old buildings and the tenants are apt to be as

old-fashioned as their surroundings. It was in one of these venerable

piles that Clayton Sargent passed his legal apprenticeship, and perhaps

this explains some things in his career which are otherwise

inexplicable.

When Sargent was first ushered into the offices of Messrs. Harding,

Peyton, Merrill and Van Standt he found a suite of plainly furnished

rooms connected by green baize doors and surrounded by law books from

floor to ceiling. The desks were large and dignified--almost learned in

their solidity, as though they had soaked in all the wisdom that had

dripped from the pens and all the experience of the pen holders.--The

large iron safe built into the wall of the rear room looked a very

monster of mystery from whose cavernous jaws no secrets would ever

escape, and in whose keeping confidences were secure as with the Sphinx.

No sound of the typewriter was ever heard in those rooms, though the

crackle and snapping of the soft cannel coal in the open fireplaces

would occasionally lure someone into betting that "the Ancients had

surrendered." No telephone ever tinkled its call inside those doors and

no member of the firm ever learned to use that instrument.

Harding, Peyton, Merrill and Van Standt's law papers were a joke in the

profession. They were engrossed on parchment-like paper and tied with

blue or red silk string, and if a seal was used two bits of ribbon

always protruded from its edge. But those who read these documents,

though they laughed at the outside, respected the inside, for "the

Ancients" had a large practice and knew how to keep it.

"They're harmless old birds," said Elmendorff, whose place Sargent was

taking, "but utterly impractical. I've been three years in a live office

and I tell you I couldn't stand this. You'll waste your time here. Why,

not a week ago I heard old man Peyton tell a client that he'd better

put everything on the altar of compromise and then offer to divide,

rather than get into litigation. They're dying of dry rot. You can't get

up a scrap here to save your eternal. Just think of this for instance.

Last month I began an action for the Staunton Manufacturing Company

against Mundel and it was dead open and shut, too. Well, in walks

Harding one morning madder than hops. 'How did this get in the office?'

says he, waiving the complaint. I told him I advised the plaintiffs that

they had a good case. 'Good case!' he roars. 'There's not the slightest

justice in the claim--not a scintilla of justice, Sir!' 'But we can

win,' I told him, and I showed the old fool where the defendant had

slipped up in the wording of his contract and how we had him cold. Well,

darn me, if he didn't get hotter under the collar than before, asking me

if I thought his firm were hired tricksters and bravos and I don't know

what. Finally he bundled all the papers back to the Staunton Company and

wrote them they oughtn't to sue. That settled me, and so I told them I'd

have to get out into the world again before the moss grew. It's a pity,

too, for they've really got a smooth lot of clients if they only knew

how to work them."

So Elmendorff departed, but no one ever heard that he took any of the

Ancients' practice with him.

It was this atmosphere which Sargent breathed for three years, and

perhaps, as has been said, that may account for some of his many

eccentricities and explain, in a measure, his treatment of Fenton.

Fenton had married the daughter of Brayton Garland, one of Mr. Harding's

clients, and when his wife sued him for divorce he brought the papers to

Sargent.

It was in offices very different from the Ancients' that Fenton found

his counsel. They were on the 17th floor of the Titan Building, on lower

Broadway, where the draught in the hall steadily sucked a stream of

people into elevators, which, with the regularity of trip-hammers, shot

them up breathless and dropped them gasping.

There were three law firms in the same suite with Sargent,--four

attorneys "on their own hook," a Seamless Mattress Company, an Electric

Drying Company and a Collection Agency. Typewriters clicked in every

room, messengers clattered up and down the long hallway, brass gates on

the railed-off spaces swung to and fro crashing with every swing, the

telephones sung a constant chorus, electric bells buzzed and tinkled,

doors banged, papers rustled, voices droned or struck the air in sharp

staccato, and yet in the midst of all this restless human energy there

were times when Sargent felt lonely. It was not merely that he missed

the atmosphere of quiet and study, but the very rush and scramble seemed

to generate ideas and actions foreign to the code of professional ethics

and dignity which governed the Ancients.

Sometimes the denizens of the Titan Building discussed the matter with

him.

"Theoretically your venerable friends are all right," a brilliant,

pushing young lawyer told him one day. "The man who lives by maxims in

this day and generation will have food for thought, but he'll never earn

his salt. We start with the same point of view, but----"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"But someone throws gold-dust in our eyes?" suggested Sargent.

"Bosh!" was the retort. "Don't talk the cant of the incompetent. The

Bar is of a higher average to-day than it ever was before."

But despite the "high average," Sargent often felt himself a solitary

outsider looking on at the mad clamour and pitiless pursuit and

wondering if it was worth all it seemed to cost. A defect in early

education--this pausing to think--for philosophers on lower Broadway are

apt to have but brief careers.

"There's nothing in the case," Fenton told his counsel, who sat gazing

out of the window at the tiny human ants crawling in and out of the

stone heaps in the street below.

Sargent looked narrowly at his client, but the side face told him

nothing, so he made no comment and Fenton continued,

"I don't know why she wants to drag us into court. I suppose some

long-whiskered tabby has been telling her I ought to stay home every

night. Say, Sargent, isn't there some way of bringing her to her

senses?"

The speaker turned from the window with a gesture of impatience, and

Sargent studied the handsome though somewhat boyish face. He knew Fenton

for an easy-going fellow, but no fool. He was a young man who had earned

his money by his own brains, acquiring all the self-confidence and

other characteristics, good and bad, which accompany achievement. There

was strength of character in his face, and a certain firmness of purpose

about the mouth that suggested something which the clear blue eyes

contradicted.

"You say there is nothing in the case," Sargent answered. "Why do you

suppose she brings suit? I don't know Mrs. Fenton, of course, but women

are not anxious as a rule to get themselves into court. Have you tried

to see her and obtain an explanation?"

"Lord, no! If you knew her you'd see how useless it would be. There's no

way out of this except by showing her we mean business. She's nearly

killed all the affection I ever had for her by this nonsense, but I want

it stopped--and stopped right now."

The suggestive lines of Fenton's mouth were strongly marked as he

snapped out the last words.

"If you no longer love your wife,--am I to understand that you want a

divorce? Have you anything to set up by way of counterclaim?"

"By way of counterclaim? No.--Yes, I have. I want the children."

Sargent smiled. "That's hardly a counterclaim," he answered.

"Well, it's counterclaim enough for me.--That's just the thing. You push

that and we'll see about the rest afterwards. If she wants to go into

court she'll have to go without the children."

Fenton's mouth was firmly set, and its lines were almost grim. The

boyish look had faded, and without it his features developed coarseness.

Sargent hesitated.

"Mr. Fenton," he said at last, "I don't like these cases, and when a man

dislikes his work, you know, he's not apt to do it well. I think you

would do better to retain other counsel."

"Now that's all nonsense, Sargent. You are just the man for me. I don't

want one of those advertising roarers who'll have us in every paper. I

want this thing stopped. You'll only have to apply for the children and

that'll end it. There are plenty of legal ruffians to be had. I have

chosen you because you are a gentleman and know how this business should

be handled."

There was no note of flattery in Fenton's tone.

"But, Mr. Fenton, admitting there is nothing in the case, the custody of

the children is still a matter resting wholly in the discretion of the

Court and you may not succeed. Mr. Harding is an excellent lawyer and

will doubtless make a good fight. You remember, of course, that I was in

his office some years ago?"

Fenton looked sharply at his counsel and his eyes narrowed slightly as

he answered.

"Well, that doesn't make any difference, does it? It ought to be all the

better. You must know all the old chap's tricks."

There was a suggestion of cunning about the man which completely

transformed him for a moment. His watchful eyes, however, read the doubt

in Sargent's face and bespoke a charming sincerity as he added:

"Why, of course, I knew you were brought up with 'the Ancients,'

Sargent. I was only joking. But that is merely another reason why you

are best fitted to undertake this case. If it were the ordinary divorce

dirt I wouldn't ask you to plough it up. But it's not. Mr. Harding knows

you and you will be able to approach him easily. Mrs. Fenton has been

poorly advised, I think, but the mischief's not yet wholly done. Make

your 'motion' or whatever you call it, and then you'll find the rest is

easy. I know you can handle the matter as few men could. I've wanted to

give you some business for a long time and I'm sorry to begin with this.

However, it will not be the last, you know."

Sargent had built up a fair practice since he left "the Ancients," but

this was the first time he had ever been opposed to them. He confessed

to himself that he did not like it.

Fenton was not wholly convincing, but if he did not take up this case

someone else would. If he was better than his profession it was high

time to retire from it. Then, too, Mr. Harding was growing old, and

doubtless the woman deceived by silly stories had deceived him. Very

probably, as Fenton said, the first aggressive move would settle the

whole affair. What fools women were to listen to every Old Wife who came

along with idle tittle-tattle seeking recruits for the great Army of the

Misunderstood! Fenton's business was worth having, and if this matter

went well there was no knowing where it might lead. Moreover all the

essential facts were in the defendant's favour, and as Sargent

skilfully set them forth in his "moving papers" he experienced that

subtle influence, known to every lawyer, which can turn the most

judicial counsel into a partisan, and make the silliest quarrel a matter

of deadly moment between strangers to its cause.