Arthur Train

“ Señor Ramirez might live on indefinitely, and when he ultimately died, if indeed he ever died, they would both be old.
“Courage, amigo!” Señora Isabella had whispered to Don Antonio in her deep contralto, seizing his hand in a powerful clutch as they sat before the nesting flamingos. “It is the only way. Better that both of us should be dead than eating our hearts out. Pah! Ramirez will last ten—twenty—who knows how many years!”
“Thou art right, dearest heart,” Don Antonio had answered. “A great love justifies all things.” ”

“ For look it he certainly did not, as he sat motionless on the witness chair—more like a clay statue than a man, his chalky face set and his narrow shoulders foursquare to the world—an impotent yet defiant creature, like a wild animal driven into a hole or fettered to a stake. Only when his eyes over Mr. Tutt’s shoulders met those of Annie Murphy did his stubborn expression soften. O’Brien caught the looks that passed between them and scowled. That sort of thing always had a bad effect on the jury. He must “can” it somehow. He strolled back to his place and faced Mooney again. ”

“ The sun was pouring over the thatched roofs and antique gables of St Aignan-sur-Doubs, a big apple-tree in the yard had showered the earth with blossoms, pigeons fluttered up and down the street, and a few hobbling old men and women were chatting by the church. Monsieur and Madame Didon stood by the door regretfully awaiting their guests' departure, and Pierre with the limousine was close by.
But a change had been wrought in the motor overnight, for it was decked with flowers from dashboard to tail-lamp, and blossomed like the old apple-tree. ”

“ Tutt's soul as he trudged homeward. He had made a good speech, but it had had absolutely nothing to do with the case, which the jury would perceive as soon as they thought it over. It was a confession of defeat. Angelo would be convicted of murder in the first degree and electrocuted, Rosalina would be a widow, and somehow he would be in a measure responsible for it. The tragedy of human life appalled him. He felt very old, as old as the dead-and-gone authors from whom he had quoted with such remarkable facility. He belonged with them; he was too old to practise his profession. ”

“ IN WITNESS WHEREOF I “What I want is a lawyer who can deliver the goods; I don’t care what it costs. Can I talk business with you?”
The grim-visaged woman sitting opposite Mr. Ephraim Tutt looked across the desk at him significantly.
“I don’t know why not,” replied the lawyer affably. “Business is what I’m looking for; what every lawyer is after, I guess!”
“Well”—she hesitated, striving to penetrate the sphinxlike mask of his wizened old face, which had defied lawyers and judges and poker players alike for half a century—“you drew Cabel’s will, and you’re the executor named in it. ”

“ In a dusty compartment on my desk there lies a brown manila envelope, and sometimes, when the day's work is over and I have glanced for the last time across the court-yard of the Tombs at the clock tower on the New York Life Building, I take it out and idly read the press story of the famous diamond. And there rises dimly before me the pathetic scene at Queretaro where a brave and good man met his death, and I wonder if perchance there is any truth in the superstition that some stones carry ill-luck with them. But it is a far cry from the Emperor of Mexico to a New York bill-poster. ”

“ McAllister followed the keeper down the narrow gangway that ran around the prison. In the stone corridor below a great iron stove glowed red-hot, and its fumes rose and mingled with the tainted air that floated out from every cell. Above him rose tier on tier, illuminated only by the gray light which filtered through a grimy window at one end of the prison. The arrangement of cells, the "bridges" that joined the tiers, and the murky atmosphere, heightened the resemblance to the "'tween decks" of an enormous slaver, bearing them all away to some distant port of servitude. ”

“ It is improbable that Ephraim Tutt was conscious of what drew him to Danny Lowry, but drawn he was; and the reason for it was that the fundamental mainspring of the life of each was love—in the case of the man of law for those of his fellow men who suffered through foolishness or poverty or weaknesses or misfortune; and in that of his more humble counterpart, whose limitations precluded his understanding of more endowed human beings, for the dumb animals, who must mutely suffer through the foolishness or poverty or weakness or misfortune of their owners and masters. ”

“ A defendant cannot deprive the people of the right to prove what he may have divulged respecting his offense merely by claiming that it was in confidence. Public policy could never allow that. It may be unpleasant for you to answer the question but I must ask you to do so."
"But," she protested, "you certainly cannot expect me to betray a confidence! I asked O'Connell to tell me what he had done so that I could help him—and he trusted me!"
"But you are not responsible for the law! He took his chance!" admonished the judge. ”

“ For the rat is fighting for life and the ferret is fighting for his living.
The danger to the young lawyer who out of a desire for public service seeks an appointment as an assistant district attorney, is that in the passion of the chase the conviction and punishment of some—to him—obviously guilty criminal may seem more important at the moment than the strict preservation of his own integrity or the unwavering maintenance of the principles of justice. Shall the murderer go free simply because some foolish law prohibits hearsay evidence or the proving of more than one offense at the same time? ”

“ The marriage itself is an entirely different thing. When a marriage is performed and consummated the parties have changed their condition; they bear an entirely new relationship to society, which, as represented by the state, acquires an interest in the transaction, and all you can say about it is that whereas they were both single before, they are married now, and that in the eyes of the law their status has been altered to one as distinct and clearly defined as that which exists between father and son, guardian and ward or master and slave."
"Hear! Hear!" remarked Tutt. ”

“ They could hear a dull murmur of conversation, the cough was repeated, a bench dragged across a floor, some fastening was slowly loosed, and a yellow gleam of light shot up through the shadow as a scuttle opened in the sidewalk. A lean, scrawny figure thrust itself upward, sleepily rubbing its eyes, collarless, its shirt open at the breast, its hair tousled, coughing. Catherwood, now confident that he had the support of his companions, addressed the ghost, in whom he recognized Pedler, the journeyman from behind the curtains. The clubman's face, however, was concealed in shadow from the other. ”

“ Grover’s funeral Miss Aymar, sitting in the big leather chair beside the desk in Mr. Tutt’s office, learned for the first time of her unfortunate predicament. The old lawyer had made an abject and what was in truth a most piteous confession, and now he waited humbly for the storm of censure which he expected to fall upon him. But the storm did not break. Miss Aymar, whether from kindness, ignorance, or stupidity, did not seem to be greatly disturbed. She looked so adorable in her black gown that he felt more wretched than ever. ”

“ A few small birds flickered among the alders, and now and again a rabbit first hesitated and then jumped regretfully across the road before them, but as a whole, nature was resting. Broad awake in the lazy afternoon sunlight she was luxuriating after her summer, and drowsily lying without even drawing breath. The air had that warmth and yet that freshness that at once sends a glow to the heart and thrills the senses. ”

“ That feller, Monohan, could get twenty years! It made him mad, this infernal conspiracy, as it seemed to him, between judges and prosecutors. It mattered little, apparently, whether they got the right man or not so long as they got some one! What business had they to go and convict a feller who was innocent, and put him, Jim, the cleverest “gun” in the profession, in such a position? He wondered if folks in other lines of business had so many problems to face. The stupidity of witnesses and the trickery of lawyers was almost beyond belief. ”

“ He rose, feeling as one who dreams; that he is naked in the midst of a multitude. He shrank back hesitating, but hostile hands reached out and pushed him forward. Cringing, he slunk to the witness chair, and for the first time faced the sardonic eyes of the terrible Tutt, his adversary who looked scornfully from Hepplewhite to the jury and then from the jury back to Hepplewhite as if to say: "Look at him! Call you this a man?"
"You are the Mr. Hepplewhite who has been referred to in the testimony as the owner of the house in which the defendant was found?" inquired O'Brien. ”

“ What on earth do you mean?"
"I mean this," began Tutt, clearing his throat as if he were addressing twelve good and true men—"a camel is obviously an unusual—not to say peculiar—animal to be roosting over there in that attic. It is an exotic—if I may use that term. It is as exotic as a brass bed from Connecticut would be, or is, in Damascus or Lebanon. Now, therefore, a camel will as assuredly give cause for trouble in New York as a brass bed in Bagdad!"
"The right thing often makes trouble if put in the wrong place," pondered Mr. Tutt. ”

“ The big Vuitton lay at one side, and about it a row of other trunks roughly in a semicircle. The porter made but one step in the desired direction, then jumped as if he had seen a ghost, for a big basket trunk, standing alone upon its end apart, suddenly shook violently, its lock clicked, the cover swung open, and out jumped a slender, sharp-featured young man with a black mustache. It was Barney Conville, although at first McAllister failed to recognize him. ”

“ At that the world went bad for Amos Todhunter. Blackness descended. Devils shrieked.
“I don’t care what it is!” he shouted. “Get out of here!”
“Listen, Mr. Wiltbank,” urged Dennis in a vain endeavor to pacify him. “You sold some land to a man named Carter——”
“Go and see my lawyer!” yelled Todhunter. “I know nothing whatever about it. I didn’t sell any land to him. I never sold any land to anybody in my life.” ”

“ Your intelligence is of a high order. By ordinary application you could have risen far above your fellows. You are a dangerous criminal—all the more dangerous for your ability. You almost outwitted the jury, and conducted your own case more ably than nine out of ten lawyers would have done. You have ruined your own life, and cast away a pearl of price. You have my pity, but I cannot allow it to affect my duty. Graham, I sentence you to State Prison for ten years."
The prisoner shivered, and covered his face with his hands. ”

“ Thus the law’s restriction, which is apparently an advantage to the witness, particularly if he be a defendant accused of a crime, in reality works against him; just as the right to take the stand in fact compels every defendant to do so or suffer the penalty of refusal in the form of the jury’s natural assumption that he is afraid to do so because he is guilty. Of this great principle the Bloodhound now proposed to avail himself to the utter annihilation of Paddy Mooney and Mr. Tutt, both of whom he was resolved should plunge down into the abyss of discreditability. ”

“ The poverty and loneliness of his college days, the torture of his isolation in Cambridge, the regret for youth's lost opportunities faded from his mind, and in their place he felt the warm breath of love and friendship, of kindness and appreciation, and the tiny clasp of the hand of little Jack.
"God bless them all!" He closed his eyes. It seemed as though the boy were lying in his arms, the little head pressed against his shoulder. He held him tight and kissed the curly hair; his own head dropped lower; the cigar fell from his hand; behind the curtain Brown fell fast asleep. ”

“ Shall he take the bread out of his children’s mouths because the fruit of his professional labors may, in the hands of another, be used to work an injustice? Must every attorney maintain a hospital, an observation ward in connection with his office? Nay! Such a thought is nonsense! It is no part of a lawyer’s business to act as a spy upon his client or anticipate and expose his contemplated iniquities.
Had Tutt & Tutt refused to draw the codicil to Mr. Baldwin’s will Alfreda would simply have given the job to some other firm. ”

“ I've just come from the Tombs and had quite a talk with Serafino in the counsel room, with a gum-chewing keeper sitting in the corner watching me for fear I'd slip his prisoner a saw file or a shotgun or a barrel of poison. I'm all in! These murder cases drive me to drink, Mr. Tutt. I don't mind grand larceny, forgery, assault or even manslaughter—but murder gets my goat! And when you have a crazy Italian for a client who says he's glad he did it and would like to do it again—please excuse me! It isn't law; it's suicide! ”

“ Inside the station house Tom held a few moments' converse with one of its grizzled guardians, and then led our hero along a passage and opened a door. But here McAllister shrank back. It was his first sight of that great cosmopolitan institution, the police court. Before him lay the scene of which he had so often read in the newspapers. The big room with its Gothic windows was filled to overflowing with every variety of the human species, who not only taxed the seating capacity of the benches to the utmost, but near the doors were packed into a solid, impenetrable mass. ”

“ A lady's honor and reputation were sacred, and her knight was prepared instantly to defend it with the last drop of his blood. A reflection on her honesty was almost as unbearable as one upon her virtue. Logically, the unwritten law ought to permit women to break their contracts and do practically anything they see fit."
"They do, don't they—the dear things!" sighed Bonnie.
"I remember," interjected Tutt brightly, "when it was the unwritten law of Cook County, Illinois—that's Chicago, you know—that any woman could kill her husband for the life-insurance money. Seriously!" ”

“ Do you know that frayed sparrow that comes and sits on your window ledge and waits for some one? Do you know that lightness that steals over your heart of a morning when you seat yourself at your desk amid the smell of dusty lawbooks? Well, there comes a time when the breeze and the sparrow and the leap of the heart unite to tell you that something is happening to old Mother Earth—and at the same time something happened to Bat. ”

“ Why had God made him a rich man? Why was he compelled to suffer those terrible indignities? He was not responsible for what had been done—why then, was he being treated so abominably?
"I don't want this man punished!" he suddenly broke out in fervent expostulation. "I have nothing against him. I don't believe he intended to do any wrong. And I hope the jury will acquit him!"
"Oho!" whistled Mr. Tutt exultantly, while O'Brien gazed at Hepplewhite in stupefaction. Was this a man?
"So you admit that the charge against my client is without foundation?" insisted Mr. Tutt. ”

“ Don Antonio still went cheerfully about his business, but both Isabella and he knew that it was probably only a question of hours or even of minutes before the purchase of the poison would be traced and he would be charged with the attempted murder of Señor Ramirez; she, perhaps, as his accomplice. So each made ready for the ordeal to come, the man after his kind and the woman after hers. His was the manner of a grandee of Spain; who would fight for a lady’s honor to the death or blithely suffer it for her sake. ”

“ He ordered McAllister in no gentle language to abstain from exercise and go to sleep. A woman farther down the corridor commenced to moan drearily to herself. Evidently sleep had made her forget her sorrow, but now in the middle of the night it came back to her with redoubled force. Her groans racked McAllister's heart. A stir ran all along the cells—sounds of people tossing restlessly, curses, all the nameless noises of the jail. McAllister, fearful of bringing some new calamity upon his head, sat down. ”

“ Tutt carefully ignited the attenuated stogy which he had excavated from its stratified brethren.
“A lawyer has to be faithful to his retainer—even if sometimes he doesn’t get it,” he announced, exhaling a poisonous cloud of greenish-gray smoke. “It is the duty of the attorney to be loyal to the interests of the person who employs him and to carry out his wishes to the best of his ability, just as it is the duty of the client to compensate him for his services. ”

“ One who viewed it as his duty to his God, his country, and himself to convict by any means at his command every hapless defendant brought to the bar of justice.
Through his pertinacity, his resourcefulness, and his lack of scruple he had achieved great notoriety as a prosecutor. Lawyers feared him, defendants shuddered at the mere thought of facing his merciless cross-examination; for he was without consideration to the former or sympathy for the latter. He had no bowels or mercies. ”

“ His eyes flashed, his disordered locks waved in picturesque synchronization with his impassioned gestures Rosalina, her beautiful golden cross rising and falling hysterically upon her bosom, took her seat in the witness chair like a frightened, furtive creature of the woods, gazed for one brief instant upon the twelve men in the jury box with those great black eyes of hers, and then with burning cheeks buried her face in her handkerchief.
"I protest against this piece of cruelty!" cried Mr. Tutt in a voice vibrating with indignation. "This is worthy of the Inquisition. ”

“ None of us gave a thought to the imp or recalled that it was the day of the great opening game at the Polo grounds between Pittsburgh and the Giants.
All that night Bat lay broad awake beside his little sister in an eight by ten room opening on an airshaft, with his brain in a whirl, hearing the click of the machine, and trying to remember all the things that Rynders, Hallowell. Fink, and I might have forgotten. Near morning he stole up to the roof and cooled his hot, freckled face in the night breeze. ”

“ He realized as yet only the mysterious charm, the overwhelming attraction of his new surroundings; and every sense, dwarfed by inheritance, chilled by the east wind, throbbed and tingled in response. So far as Brown knew happiness this was its consummation; and it was all due to Rogers. As Brown wandered along the crowded thoroughfare his mind dwelt fondly upon his friend. He recalled their chance introduction two years before at the Colonial Club in Cambridge, through Harry's friend Winthrop, and how his heart had instantly gone out to the courteous and responsive stranger. ”

“ Should we not praise, rather than condemn, the young enthusiast who is willing to sacrifice his virtue, his ideals, his very soul in order that some ruffian may hang? Should we not pay tribute to one who is willing to be damned for the glory of God?
Judge Watkins looked searchingly around the court room until his eye came to rest in a far corner.
“I will assign Mr. Ephraim Tutt to the case,” said he, and at the summons the old lawyer arose from his seat and, stovepipe hat in hand, approached the bar. ”

“ Sorg.
A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not affect to have any. To her neither Tutt nor Mr. Tutt was any such great shakes. Had Tutt dared to let her know of many of the schemes which he devised for the profit or safety of his clients she would have thought less of him still; in fact, she might have parted with him forever. ”

“ If we were out of town but within call, Bat would pretend that we were in court, make a memorandum of what the client wanted, and either attend to it himself or telephone us for orders.
And as Bat stayed with us and increased in wisdom and in stature (he was at the rapidly growing age) , his profanity became less colorful and his manners and habits akin to being civilized. By April he was as fast on the machine as Swazey, and even more accurate; for his fingers raced over the keys until they rattled like a continuous volley of small arms. ”

“ His stale spirit soared in ecstasy, and left him tongue-tied. In vulgar parlance he was rattled to death, this commonplace little lawyer who for a score of years had dealt cynically with the loves and lives of the flock of female butterflies who fluttered annually in and out of the office. Throughout that period he had sat unemotionally behind his desk and listened in an aloof, cold, professional manner to the stories of their wrongs as they sobbed or hissed them forth. Wise little lawyer that he was, he had regarded them all as just what they were and nothing else—specimens of the Cecropia. ”

“ Hepplewhite.
An alarm began to beat a deafening staccato in the hall outside the library. Bibby rushed gurgling from the room. Several tall men in knee breeches and silk stockings dashed excitedly up and down stairs using expressions such as had never before been heard by Mr. Hepplewhite, and the clanging gong of a police wagon was audible as it clattered up the Avenue.
"Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite," whispered Mrs. Witherspoon, unconsciously seeking his hand. "I never was so frightened in my life!" ”