Arthur Train

“ If that ain’t Pierpont Pumpelly’s cigarette-case I’ll eat my hat! And there’s the watch fob that belonged to my Great-uncle Moses! Well, I never! The man’s a thief, that’s what he is! It was worth while coming up here! I wonder how many other things he’s taken!”
A pasteboard box in the back of the drawer yielded an old-fashioned gold-plated watch, a heavy chain with an agate charm, two wiggly scarfpins, a pair of coral cuff-buttons, a single one of onyx, and a pair of paste studs—all easily identified as belonging to the Athens period of their existence. ”

“ Tutt, who received him kindly and informed him that Mrs. Pierpont Pumpelly’s impulsiveness would cost her exactly ten thousand dollars. This seemed very curious to Mr. Edgerton.
“But, sir,” protested the elegant but baffled lawyer, “you do not seem to understand the situation. It is my client who has had your client arrested for a criminal offense—grand larceny in fact. I am—h’m—not very familiar with such matters, but I suppose the easiest way to dispose of this unpleasant case is for your client to enter a plea of guilty and throw himself upon the mercy of my client and of the court.” ”

“ II “Mr. Tutt,” remarked Tutt as the senior partner of the firm paused at the door of his office and skilfully decorated the hat-tree with his stovepipe from a distance of seven feet, “I have news for thee.”
The office force of Tutt & Tutt could always tell the altitude of Mr. Ephraim Tutt’s psychological barometer by his ability to stand on the threshold of his room, send his tall hat spinning through the air and hang it on the top of the mahogany tree. ”

“ Mrs. Pumpelly had not engaged any lawyer, so it had been necessary for him to wait to explain the matter to the district attorney, who had been very busy all morning and had gone out to lunch at a quarter to one and had not come back until long after three. The latter had then amused himself in trying a bigamy case in utter disregard of the butler’s convenience. Mr. Simmons consequently had not had any lunch at all! Worse still, after the conclusion of the bigamy case the district attorney had utterly disappeared, oblivious of the presence of Simmons. ”

“ A conspiracy! P. P. paid Beaton to let him wear what he chose! Beaton was a traitor to the cause of her social progress. The nerve of that man! What was a vallay for but to see that one’s husband put on the right sort of clothes before he went out? The trouble was he was too young; didn’t have enough authority. She must get a man—a big, heavy man—who, if Pierpont rebelled, could shove him into a corner and willy-nilly put the right pants on him. But first she must get rid of this one. She began to hate Beaton. He had been unfaithful to her; he had got her in wrong at Mrs. Morganthaler’s ”

“ Mr. Delancy looked at her significantly. The first two—a dismissal by the district attorney or grand jury—were unlikely, he said, because of Mr. Tutt’s attitude, which seemed to be rather as if he wanted his client both indicted and tried. As to the result of a trial, it would all turn on what Mr. Pumpelly might testify to. Edna stared at him. But Mr. Pumpelly was in Glasgow! Well, he was coming home sometime, wasn’t he? suggested Mr. Delancy. In the end Edna paid over the thousand. That, with her bill from Edgerton & Edgerton, made twenty-five hundred that her malice had cost her. ”

“ But so long as she can come up here and look in my closet and see fifty suits hanging there and a hundred pairs of boots in a line on the floor, look in my bureau and see a big pile of merino drawers and undershirts, a thousand pairs of silk socks, five thousand ties and a million handkerchiefs, she’ll be satisfied. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. I may have to own the clothes, but I don’t have to wear ’em. Now I’ll buy the clothes, you make a noise like a vallay—the louder the better—but it stops right there. ”

“ Edna said she didn’t want any delay; that she wanted the matter attended to at once. Why should the man be allowed to hold a baseless claim over her head for two years? Wilfred patiently explained that it wasn’t his fault. Usually, he said, people who had actions brought against them wanted all the delay they could get, to tire the plaintiffs out.
At that Edna saw a great light. That was just what Beaton was trying to do to her in the criminal case—tire her out! Well, he’d see! He’d see! Tire her out! Ha! ”

“ She did not dare fire Beaton right off the bat, but she made up her mind to get the goods on him and give him the sack before Pierpont came back.
Together, she and the housekeeper went on a still hunt to Beaton’s room on his afternoon out. It was a dreary enough place, seven by ten, with hardly enough room for a cot bed, a bureau, and a wash-stand. No chair. The housekeeper had said chairs gave servants the habit of sitting in their rooms, which was bad and used up electricity. Let them go to bed and get their rest so they could properly do their work. ”

“ Pumpelly expects to spend some time motoring in the Tyrolean Alps.”
Mrs. Pumpelly passed the period intervening before the sailing of the steamer in delightful anticipation. She hadn’t been so happy and carefree since that miserable day she had had Beaton arrested nearly six months before. There were a lot of people she knew going over for their annual spring spending, including Mrs. Morganthaler, and Edna made up her mind that this would be a grand chance to make up to her again and square the bad impression which P. P.’s congress shoes might have made. ”

“ Tutt wants his client indicted, so that he can—er—get more delay. If the man is once indicted and let out on bail it may be several years before he can be tried.”
“Is that so?” queried Mrs. Pumpelly in a high sarcastic voice. “Listen here! I’ve had about all of this shilly-shallying and diddle-daddling I’m goin’ to stand! If you don’t get busy and do something I’m going to get another lawyer, little man!” ”

“ She was served with a summons and complaint in an action for malicious prosecution and false arrest—Beaton versus Pumpelly, in the Supreme Court of New York County—in which her husband’s former valet demanded judgment against her for ten thousand dollars’ damages. It was nothing but a bluff on Mr. Tutt’s part, since an action for false arrest or malicious prosecution cannot be maintained until the criminal prosecution upon which it is founded is disposed of. ”

“ I There are some people who simply can’t learn anything by experience. I am thinking particularly of Mrs. Edna [Pierpont] Pumpelly, née Haskins, wife of Vice-President Pumpelly of the Cuban Crucible Steel Company, formerly of Athens, Ohio, and now of East Seventy-third Street, New York, New York. ”

“ The missus has hired a housekeeper and you come with the rest of the outfit. I don’t mind payin’ you—not at all. But I don’t want you to bother me any more than necessary. I can shave, clean my teeth, pare my fingernails, gargle my throat and put on my socks without assistance. I can even, under favorable circumstances, draw my own bath and brush my own hair. The way you hold my pants for me to jump into makes me nervous. I’m not trained to it. I like old soft things that fit into me ”

“ Mr. Wilfred Edgerton had explained fully, and with much decorously suppressed irritation, how—after he and his brother and their entire office staff had spent the greater part of a week briefing the law on the subject of grand and petty larceny, burden of proof, presumption of innocence, presumptions arising from possession and exclusive opportunity, reasonable cause, and the proper procedure in magistrates’ courts, and had personally appeared in support of Simmons and had waited, from nine in the morning until half-past twelve, to lay the whole case properly before the judge—that Mr. ”

“ Now then, the missus insists on my havin’ you, and I like you personally all right. You’re a well-meaning young feller in spite of your frozen face. But you’ll get thawed out over here soon enough. Let’s come to an agreement. ”