It had been a day of triumph for Colonel Starbottle. First, for
his personality, as it would have been difficult to separate
the Colonel’s achievements from his individuality; second, for
his oratorical abilities as a sympathetic pleader; and third,
for his functions as the leading counsel for the Eureka Ditch
Company _versus_ the State of California. On his strictly legal
performances in this issue I prefer not to speak; there were those
who denied them, although the jury had accepted them in the face
of the ruling of the half-amused, half-cynical Judge himself. For
an hour they had laughed with the Colonel, wept with him, been
stirred to personal indignation or patriotic exaltation by his
passionate and lofty periods—what else could they do than give him
their verdict? If it was alleged by some that the American eagle,
Thomas Jefferson, and the Resolutions of ’98 had nothing whatever
to do with the contest of a ditch company over a doubtfully worded
legislative document; that wholesale abuse of the State Attorney
and his political motives had not the slightest connection with
the legal question raised—it was, nevertheless, generally accepted
that the losing party would have been only too glad to have the
Colonel on their side. And Colonel Starbottle knew this, as,
perspiring, florid, and panting, he rebuttoned the lower buttons
of his blue frock-coat, which had become loosed in an oratorical
spasm, and readjusted his old-fashioned, spotless shirt frill above
it as he strutted from the courtroom amidst the hand-shakings and
acclamations of his friends.
And here an unprecedented thing occurred. The Colonel absolutely
declined spirituous refreshment at the neighboring Palmetto Saloon,
and declared his intention of proceeding directly to his office in
the adjoining square. Nevertheless the Colonel quitted the building
alone, and apparently unarmed except for his faithful gold-headed
stick, which hung as usual from his forearm. The crowd gazed after
him with undisguised admiration of this new evidence of his pluck.
It was remembered also that a mysterious note had been handed to
him at the conclusion of his speech—evidently a challenge from the
State Attorney. It was quite plain that the Colonel—a practised
duellist—was hastening home to answer it.
But herein they were wrong. The note was in a female hand, and
simply requested the Colonel to accord an interview with the writer
at the Colonel’s office as soon as he left the court. But it was an
engagement that the Colonel—as devoted to the fair sex as he was
to the “code”—was no less prompt in accepting. He flicked away the
dust from his spotless white trousers and varnished boots with his
handkerchief, and settled his black cravat under his Byron collar
as he neared his office. He was surprised, however, on opening the
door of his private office to find his visitor already there; he
was still more startled to find her somewhat past middle age and
plainly attired. But the Colonel was brought up in a school of
Southern politeness, already antique in the republic, and his bow
of courtesy belonged to the epoch of his shirt frill and strapped
trousers. No one could have detected his disappointment in his
manner, albeit his sentences were short and incomplete. But the
Colonel’s colloquial speech was apt to be fragmentary incoherencies
of his larger oratorical utterances.
“A thousand pardons—for—er—having kept a lady waiting—er!
But—er—congratulations of friends—and—er—courtesy due to
them—er—interfered with—though perhaps only heightened—by
procrastination—pleasure of—ha!” And the Colonel completed his
sentence with a gallant wave of his fat but white and well-kept
hand.
“Yes! I came to see you along o’ that speech of yours. I was in
court. When I heard you gettin’ it off on that jury, I says to
myself that’s the kind o’ lawyer _I_ want. A man that’s flowery and
convincin’! Just the man to take up our case.”
“Ah! It’s a matter of business, I see,” said the Colonel, inwardly
relieved, but externally careless. “And—er—may I ask the nature of
the case?”
“Well! it’s a breach-o’-promise suit,” said the visitor, calmly.
If the Colonel had been surprised before, he was now really
startled, and with an added horror that required all his politeness
to conceal. Breach-of-promise cases were his peculiar aversion. He
had always held them to be a kind of litigation which could have
been obviated by the prompt killing of the masculine offender—in
which case he would have gladly defended the killer. But a suit
for damages!—_damages!_—with the reading of love-letters before
a hilarious jury and court, was against all his instincts. His
chivalry was outraged; his sense of humor was small—and in the
course of his career he had lost one or two important cases through
an unexpected development of this quality in a jury.
The woman had evidently noticed his hesitation, but mistook its
cause. “It ain’t me—but my darter.”
The Colonel recovered his politeness. “Ah! I am relieved, my dear
madam! I could hardly conceive a man ignorant enough to—er—er—throw
away such evident good fortune—or base enough to deceive the
trustfulness of womanhood—matured and experienced only in the
chivalry of our sex, ha!”
The woman smiled grimly. “Yes!—it’s my darter, Zaidee Hooker—so ye
might spare some of them pretty speeches for _her_—before the jury.”
The Colonel winced slightly before this doubtful prospect, but
smiled. “Ha! Yes!—certainly—the jury. But—er—my dear lady, need
we go as far as that? Cannot this affair be settled—er—out of
court? Could not this—er—individual—be admonished—told that he
must give satisfaction—personal satisfaction—for his dastardly
conduct—to —er—near relative—or even valued personal friend?
The—er—arrangements necessary for that purpose I myself would
undertake.”
He was quite sincere; indeed, his small black eyes shone with that
fire which a pretty woman or an “affair of honor” could alone
kindle. The visitor stared vacantly at him, and said, slowly:
“And what good is that goin’ to do _us_?”
“Compel him to—er—perform his promise,” said the Colonel, leaning
back in his chair.
“Ketch him doin’ it!” said the woman, scornfully. “No—that ain’t
wot we’re after. We must make him _pay_! Damages—and nothin’ short
o’ _that_.”
The Colonel bit his lip. “I suppose,” he said, gloomily, “you have
documentary evidence—written promises and protestations—er—er—
love-letters, in fact?”
“No—nary a letter! Ye see, that’s jest it—and that’s where _you_
come in. You’ve got to convince that jury yourself. You’ve got to
show what it is—tell the whole story your own way. Lord! to a man
like you that’s nothin’.”
Startling as this admission might have been to any other lawyer,
Starbottle was absolutely relieved by it. The absence of any
mirth-provoking correspondence, and the appeal solely to his own
powers of persuasion, actually struck his fancy. He lightly put
aside the compliment with a wave of his white hand.
“Of course,” said the Colonel, confidently, “there is strongly
presumptive and corroborative evidence? Perhaps you can give
me—er—a brief outline of the affair?”
“Zaidee kin do that straight enough, I reckon,” said the woman;
“what I want to know first is, kin you take the case?”
The Colonel did not hesitate; his curiosity was piqued. “I
certainly can. I have no doubt your daughter will put me in
possession of sufficient facts and details—to constitute what we
call—er—a brief.”
“She kin be brief enough—or long enough—for the matter of that,”
said the woman, rising. The Colonel accepted this implied witticism
with a smile.
“And when may I have the pleasure of seeing her?” he asked,
politely.
“Well, I reckon as soon as I can trot out and call her. She’s just
outside, meanderin’ in the road—kinder shy, ye know, at first.”
She walked to the door. The astounded Colonel nevertheless
gallantly accompanied her as she stepped out into the street and
called, shrilly, “You Zaidee!”
A young girl here apparently detached herself from a tree and the
ostentatious perusal of an old election poster, and sauntered down
towards the office door. Like her mother, she was plainly dressed;
unlike her, she had a pale, rather refined face, with a demure
mouth and downcast eyes. This was all the Colonel saw as he bowed
profoundly and led the way into his office, for she accepted his
salutations without lifting her head. He helped her gallantly
to a chair, on which she seated herself sideways, somewhat
ceremoniously, with her eyes following the point of her parasol as
she traced a pattern on the carpet. A second chair offered to the
mother that lady, however, declined. “I reckon to leave you and
Zaidee together to talk it out,” she said; turning to her daughter,
she added, “Jest you tell him all, Zaidee,” and before the Colonel
could rise again, disappeared from the room. In spite of his
professional experience, Starbottle was for a moment embarrassed.
The young girl, however, broke the silence without looking up.
“Adoniram K. Hotchkiss,” she began, in a monotonous voice, as if
it were a recitation addressed to the public, “first began to take
notice of me a year ago. Arter that—off and on——”
“One moment,” interrupted the astounded Colonel; “do you mean
Hotchkiss the President of the Ditch Company?” He had recognized
the name of a prominent citizen—a rigid ascetic, taciturn,
middle-aged man—a deacon—and more than that, the head of the
company he had just defended. It seemed inconceivable.
“That’s him,” she continued, with eyes still fixed on the parasol
and without changing her monotonous tone—“off and on ever since.
Most of the time at the Free-Will Baptist church—at morning
service, prayer-meetings, and such. And at home—outside—er—in the
road.”
“Is it this gentleman—Mr. Adoniram K. Hotchkiss—who—er—promised
marriage?” stammered the Colonel.
“Yes.”
The Colonel shifted uneasily in his chair. “Most extraordinary!
for—you see—my dear young lady—this becomes—a—er—most delicate
affair.”
“That’s what maw said,” returned the young woman, simply, yet with
the faintest smile playing around her demure lips and downcast
cheek.
“I mean,” said the Colonel, with a pained yet courteous smile,
“that this—er—gentleman—is in fact—er—one of my clients.”
“That’s what maw said, too, and of course your knowing him will
make it all the easier for you,” said the young woman.
A slight flush crossed the Colonel’s cheek as he returned quickly
and a little stiffly, “On the contrary—er—it may make it impossible
for me to—er—act in this matter.”
The girl lifted her eyes. The Colonel held his breath as the long
lashes were raised to his level. Even to an ordinary observer that
sudden revelation of her eyes seemed to transform her face with
subtle witchery. They were large, brown, and soft, yet filled with
an extraordinary penetration and prescience. They were the eyes of
an experienced woman of thirty fixed in the face of a child. What
else the Colonel saw there Heaven only knows! He felt his inmost
secrets plucked from him—his whole soul laid bare—his vanity,
belligerency, gallantry—even his medieval chivalry, penetrated, and
yet illuminated, in that single glance. And when the eyelids fell
again, he felt that a greater part of himself had been swallowed up
in them.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, hurriedly. “I mean—this matter
may be arranged—er—amicably. My interest with—and as you wisely
say—my—er—knowledge of my client—er—Mr. Hotchkiss—may affect—a
compromise.”
“And _damages_,” said the young girl, readdressing her parasol, as
if she had never looked up.
The Colonel winced. “And—er—undoubtedly _compensation_—if you do
not press a fulfilment of the promise. Unless,” he said, with an
attempted return to his former easy gallantry, which, however,
the recollection of her eyes made difficult, “it is a question
of—er—the affections?”
“Which?” said his fair client, softly.
“If you still love him?” explained the Colonel, actually blushing.
Zaidee again looked up; again taking the Colonel’s breath away
with eyes that expressed not only the fullest perception of what
he had _said_, but of what he thought and had not said, and with
an added subtle suggestion of what he might have thought. “That’s
tellin’,” she said, dropping her long lashes again. The Colonel
laughed vacantly. Then feeling himself growing imbecile, he forced
an equally weak gravity. “Pardon me—I understand there are no
letters; may I know the way in which he formulated his declaration
and promises?”
“Hymn-books,” said the girl, briefly.
“I beg your pardon,” said the mystified lawyer.
“Hymn-books—marked words in them with pencil—and passed ’em on to
me,” repeated Zaidee. “Like ‘love,’ ‘dear,’ ‘precious,’ ‘sweet,’
and ‘blessed,’” she added, accenting each word with a push of her
parasol on the carpet. “Sometimes a whole line outer Tate and
Brady—and _Solomon’s Song_, you know, and sich.”
“I believe,” said the Colonel, loftily, “that the—er—phrases of
sacred psalmody lend themselves to the language of the affections.
But in regard to the distinct promise of marriage—was there—er—no
_other_ expression?”
“Marriage Service in the prayer-book—lines and words outer
that—all marked,” said Zaidee. The Colonel nodded naturally and
approvingly. “Very good. Were others cognizant of this? Were there
any witnesses?”
“Of course not,” said the girl. “Only me and him. It was generally
at church-time—or prayer-meeting. Once, in passing the plate, he
slipped one o’ them peppermint lozenges with the letters stamped on
it ‘I love you’ for me to take.”
The Colonel coughed slightly. “And you have the lozenge?”
“I ate it,” said the girl, simply.
“Ah,” said the Colonel. After a pause he added, delicately: “But
were these attentions—er—confined to—er—-sacred precincts? Did he
meet you elsewhere?”
“Useter pass our house on the road,” returned the girl, dropping
into her monotonous recital, “and useter signal.”
“Ah, signal?” repeated the Colonel, approvingly.
“Yes! He’d say ‘Kerrow,’ and I’d say ‘Kerree.’ Suthing like a bird,
you know.”
Indeed, as she lifted her voice in imitation of the call the
Colonel thought it certainly very sweet and birdlike. At least
as _she_ gave it. With his remembrance of the grim deacon he had
doubts as to the melodiousness of _his_ utterance. He gravely made
her repeat it.
“And after that signal?” he added, suggestively.
“He’d pass on,” said the girl.
The Colonel coughed slightly, and tapped his desk with his
pen-holder.
“Were there any endearments—er—caresses—er—such as taking your
hand—er—clasping your waist?” he suggested, with a gallant yet
respectful sweep of his white hand and bowing of his head;—“er—
slight pressure of your fingers in the changes of a dance—I mean,”
he corrected himself, with an apologetic cough—“in the passing of
the plate?”
“No;—he was not what you’d call ’fond,’” returned the girl.
“Ah! Adoniram K. Hotchkiss was not ’fond’ in the ordinary
acceptance of the word,” said the Colonel, with professional
gravity.
She lifted her disturbing eyes, and again absorbed his in her
own. She also said “Yes,” although her eyes in their mysterious
prescience of all he was thinking disclaimed the necessity of any
answer at all. He smiled vacantly. There was a long pause. On which
she slowly disengaged her parasol from the carpet pattern and stood
up.
“I reckon that’s about all,” she said.
“Er—yes—but one moment,” said the Colonel, vaguely. He would have
liked to keep her longer, but with her strange premonition of him
he felt powerless to detain her, or explain his reason for doing
so. He instinctively knew she had told him all; his professional
judgment told him that a more hopeless case had never come to his
knowledge. Yet he was not daunted, only embarrassed. “No matter,”
he said, vaguely. “Of course I shall have to consult with you
again.” Her eyes again answered that she expected he would, but she
added, simply, “When?”
“In the course of a day or two,” said the Colonel, quickly. “I will
send you word.” She turned to go. In his eagerness to open the
door for her he upset his chair, and with some confusion, that was
actually youthful, he almost impeded her movements in the hall,
and knocked his broad-brimmed Panama hat from his bowing hand in a
final gallant sweep. Yet as her small, trim, youthful figure, with
its simple Leghorn straw hat confined by a blue bow under her round
chin, passed away before him, she looked more like a child than
ever.
The Colonel spent that afternoon in making diplomatic inquiries.
He found his youthful client was the daughter of a widow who had
a small ranch on the cross-roads, near the new Free-Will Baptist
church—the evident theatre of this pastoral. They led a secluded
life; the girl being little known in the town, and her beauty and
fascination apparently not yet being a recognized fact. The Colonel
felt a pleasurable relief at this, and a general satisfaction he
could not account for. His few inquiries concerning Mr. Hotchkiss
only confirmed his own impressions of the alleged lover—a
serious-minded, practically abstracted man—abstentive of youthful
society, and the last man apparently capable of levity of the
affections or serious flirtation. The Colonel was mystified—but
determined of purpose—whatever that purpose might have been.
The next day he was at his office at the same hour. He was alone—as
usual—the Colonel’s office really being his private lodgings,
disposed in connecting rooms, a single apartment reserved for
consultation. He had no clerk; his papers and briefs being taken by
his faithful body-servant and ex-slave “Jim” to another firm who
did his office-work since the death of Major Stryker—the Colonel’s
only law partner, who fell in a duel some years previous. With a
fine constancy the Colonel still retained his partner’s name on
his door-plate—and, it was alleged by the superstitious, kept a
certain invincibility also through the _manes_ of that lamented and
somewhat feared man.
The Colonel consulted his watch, whose heavy gold case still showed
the marks of a providential interference with a bullet destined
for its owner, and replaced it with some difficulty and shortness
of breath in his fob. At the same moment he heard a step in the
passage, and the door opened to Adoniram K. Hotchkiss. The Colonel
was impressed; he had a duellist’s respect for punctuality.
The man entered with a nod and the expectant, inquiring look of a
busy man. As his feet crossed that sacred threshold the Colonel
became all courtesy; he placed a chair for his visitor, and took
his hat from his half-reluctant hand. He then opened a cupboard and
brought out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.
“A—er—slight refreshment, Mr. Hotchkiss,” he suggested, politely.
“I never drink,” replied Hotchkiss, with the severe attitude of a
total abstainer. “Ah—er—not the finest bourbon whiskey, selected by
a Kentucky friend? No? Pardon me! A cigar, then—the mildest Havana.”
“I do not use tobacco nor alcohol in any form,” repeated Hotchkiss,
ascetically. “I have no foolish weaknesses.”
The Colonel’s moist, beady eyes swept silently over his client’s
sallow face. He leaned back comfortably in his chair, and half
closing his eyes as in dreamy reminiscence, said, slowly: “Your
reply, Mr. Hotchkiss, reminds me of—er—sing’lar circumstances
that —er—occurred, in point of fact—at the St. Charles Hotel,
New Orleans. Pinkey Hornblower—personal friend—invited Senator
Doolittle to join him in social glass. Received, sing’larly enough,
reply similar to yours. ‘Don’t drink nor smoke?’ said Pinkey.
‘Gad, sir, you must be mighty sweet on the ladies.’ Ha!” The
Colonel paused long enough to allow the faint flush to pass from
Hotchkiss’s cheek, and went on, half closing his eyes: “‘I allow no
man, sir, to discuss my personal habits,’ said Doolittle, over his
shirt collar. ‘Then I reckon shootin’ must be one of those habits,’
said Pinkey, coolly. Both men drove out on the Shell Road back of
cemetery next morning. Pinkey put bullet at twelve paces through
Doolittle’s temple. Poor Doo never spoke again. Left three wives
and seven children, they say —two of ’em black.”
“I got a note from you this morning,” said Hotchkiss, with badly
concealed impatience. “I suppose in reference to our case. You
have taken judgment, I believe.” The Colonel, without replying,
slowly filled a glass of whiskey and water. For a moment he held it
dreamily before him, as if still engaged in gentle reminiscences
called up by the act. Then tossing it off, he wiped his lips with
a large white handkerchief, and leaning back comfortably in his
chair, said, with a wave of his hand, “The interview I requested,
Mr. Hotchkiss, concerns a subject—which I may say is—er—er—at
present _not_ of a public or business nature—although _later_ it
might become—er—er—both. It is an affair of some—er—delicacy.”
The Colonel paused, and Mr. Hotchkiss regarded him with increased
impatience. The Colonel, however, continued, with unchanged
deliberation: “It concerns—er—a young lady—a beautiful, high-souled
creature, sir, who, apart from her personal loveliness— er—er—I
may say is of one of the first families of Missouri, and—
er—not—remotely connected by marriage with one of—er—er—my
boyhood’s dearest friends. The latter, I grieve to say, was a pure
invention of the Colonel’s—an oratorical addition to the scanty
information he had obtained the previous day. The young lady,” he
continued, blandly, “enjoys the further distinction of being the
object of such attention from you as would make this interview—
really—a confidential matter—er—er—among friends and—er—er—
relations in present and future. I need not say that the lady I
refer to is Miss Zaidee Juno Hooker, only daughter of Almira Ann
Hooker, relict of Jefferson Brown Hooker, formerly of Boone County,
Kentucky, and latterly of—er—Pike County, Missouri.”
The sallow, ascetic hue of Mr. Hotchkiss’s face had passed through
a livid and then a greenish shade, and finally settled into a
sullen red. “What’s all this about?” he demanded, roughly. The
least touch of belligerent fire came into Starbottle’s eye, but his
bland courtesy did not change. “I believe,” he said, politely, “I
have made myself clear as between—er—gentlemen, though perhaps not
as clear as I should to—er—er—jury.”
Mr. Hotchkiss was apparently struck with some significance in
the lawyer’s reply. “I don’t know,” he said, in a lower and more
cautious voice, “what you mean by what you call ‘my attentions’
to—any one—or how it concerns you. I have not exhausted half a
dozen words with—the person you name—have never written her a
line—nor even called at her house.” He rose with an assumption of
ease, pulled down his waistcoat, buttoned his coat, and took up his
hat. The Colonel did not move. “I believe I have already indicated
my meaning in what I have called ‘your attentions,’” said the
Colonel, blandly, “and given you my ‘concern’ for speaking as—er—er
mutual friend. As to _your_ statement of your relations with Miss
Hooker, I may state that it is fully corroborated by the statement
of the young lady herself in this very office yesterday.”
“Then what does this impertinent nonsense mean? Why am I summoned
here?” said Hotchkiss, furiously.
“Because,” said the Colonel, deliberately, “that statement is
infamously—yes, damnably to your discredit, sir!”
Mr. Hotchkiss was here seized by one of those important and
inconsistent rages which occasionally betray the habitually
cautious and timid man. He caught up the Colonel’s stick, which
was lying on the table. At the same moment the Colonel, without
any apparent effort, grasped it by the handle. To Mr. Hotchkiss’s
astonishment, the stick separated in two pieces, leaving the handle
and about two feet of narrow glittering steel in the Colonel’s
hand. The man recoiled, dropping the useless fragment. The Colonel
picked it up, fitting the shining blade in it, clicked the spring,
and then rising, with a face of courtesy yet of unmistakably
genuine pain, and with even a slight tremor in his voice, said,
gravely:
“Mr. Hotchkiss, I owe you a thousand apologies, sir, that—er— a
weapon should be drawn by me—even through your own inadvertence—
under the sacred protection of my roof, and upon an unarmed man.
I beg your pardon, sir, and I even withdraw the expressions which
provoked that inadvertence. Nor does this apology prevent you from
holding me responsible—personally responsible—_elsewhere_ for an
indiscretion committed in behalf of a lady—my—er—client.”
“Your client? Do you mean you have taken her case? You, the
counsel for the Ditch Company?” said Mr. Hotchkiss, in trembling
indignation.
“Having won _your_ case, sir,” said the Colonel, coolly,
“the—er—usages of advocacy do not prevent me from espousing the
cause of the weak and unprotected.”
“We shall see, sir,” said Hotchkiss, grasping the handle of the
door and backing into the passage. “There are other lawyers who—”
“Permit me to see you out,” interrupted the Colonel, rising
politely.
“—will be ready to resist the attacks of blackmail,” continued
Hotchkiss, retreating along the passage.
“And then you will be able to repeat your remarks to me _in the
street_,” continued the Colonel, bowing, as he persisted in
following his visitor to the door.
But here Mr. Hotchkiss quickly slammed it behind him, and hurried
away. The Colonel returned to his office, and sitting down, took
a sheet of letter paper bearing the inscription “Starbottle and
Stryker, Attorneys and Counsellors,” and wrote the following lines:
Hooker _versus_ Hotchkiss.
DEAR MADAM,—Having had a visit from the defendant in above, we
should be pleased to have an interview with you at 2 P.M.
to-morrow. Your obedient servants,