Mr. Tutt

“ As Payson Clifford trudged along the shadows of the docks he became obsessed with a curious feeling that Tutt and Mr. Tutt were both there before him; Mr. Tutt—a tall, benevolent figure carrying a torch in the shape of a huge, black, blazing stogy that beckoned him onward through the darkness; and behind him Tutt—a little paunchy red devil with horns and a tail—who tweaked him by the coat and twittered, "Don't throw away twenty-five thousand dollars! The best way is to leave matters as they are and let the law settle everything. ”

“ Tutt suddenly. "It's your business to pretend you're a doctor when you're not, and you walk the streets a free man; and you want to send my client to Sing Sing for the same offense! That is all! I am done with you! Get down off the stand! Do not let me detain you from the practise of your unlicensed profession!"
"Mr. Tutt!" again admonished His Honor as the lawyer threw himself angrily into his chair. "This really won't do at all!"
"I beg Your Honor's pardon—a thousand times!" said Mr. Tutt in tones so humble and sincere that he almost made the angel-faced baboon believe him. ”

“ He rang for Scraggs, Miss Wiggin, and Miss Sondheim and explained what had occurred, vainly seeking from them some clew to the missing document. None of them had seen it since its execution. Neither had Tutt—who shortly after arrived, and likewise ferreted through the will box without any result. Then both of them ransacked Mr. Tutt’s old mahogany desk from top to bottom, rummaged through Tutt’s desk, and finally emptied out all the drawers in the office—until the floors looked as if there had been a moderate-sized blizzard. No will! ”

“ The Comers Hotel became in due course a client of Tutt & Tutt, and the mouse which made Mr. Tutt famous did not die in vain, for the case became celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land, to the glory of the firm and a vast improvement in the culinary conditions existing in hotels.
"Come in, Mr. Barrows! Come right in! I haven't seen you for—well, how long is it?" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, extending a long welcoming arm toward a human scarecrow upon the threshold. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Tutt, who, in return, had a great pity for the old fellow’s moral struggles and a whimsical appreciation of the influence the coat seemed to exert over him.
Whenever the scrivener was unaccountably absent, Mr. Tutt would glance into the cage and, if the old fur coat were not there, would remark reassuringly, “Scraggs is all right. He’s got his coat!” ”

“ Tutt. "It will make a new man of you in no time."
"Healthiest spot in northern New York," exclaimed Doc. "Within two miles of a lake—fishing, shooting, outdoor recreation of all kinds, an ideal site for a mammoth summer hotel."
Mr. Tutt rose and laid his arms round old Doc Barrows' shoulders.
"Thank you a thousand times," he said gratefully, "for the securities. I'll be glad to keep them for you in my vault." His lips puckered in a stealthy smile which he tried hard to conceal.
"Louisa may want to repaper the farmhouse some time," he added to himself. ”

“ Tutt, and stood looking through Miss Wiggin’s window, giving the poison time to work.
Meantime, Scraggs sat rigid at his desk, his bloodshot eyes hypnotized by an oblong piece of paper which he now for the first time perceived lying inconspicuously one side of the blotter—a check bearing the almost undecipherable signature of Mr. Tutt to the order of Jno. E. Watts for one hundred and twenty dollars! One hundred and twenty dollars! The precise amount. He experienced a contraction of the larynx and a slight numbing of his motor centres. One hundred and twenty dollars! Just the price of a case! ”

“ Tutt was very tired....
"Let him sleep!" nodded Buddha, deftly conveying to his wrinkled lips a delicate morsel of guy yemg dun. "Let him sleep! He has earned his sleep. He has saved our face!"
It was after midnight when Mr. Tutt, heavily laden with princely gifts of ivory and jade and boxes of priceless teas, emerged from the side door of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant. The sky was brilliant with stars and the sidewalks of Doyers and Pell Streets were crowded with pedestrians. ”

“ Tutt patiently.
"He says what god you mean!" countered the interpreter.
"Oh, any god!" roared Mr. Tutt.
The interpreter, after a long parley, made reply.
"Ah Fong says there is no binding oath except on a chicken's head."
Judge Bender, O'Brien and Mr. Tutt gazed at one another helplessly.
"Well, there you are!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Mr. O'Brien's oath wasn't any oath at all! What kind of a chicken's head?"
"A white rooster." ”

“ Tutt. "A barber cut Samson's hair. Let it be a lesson to you never to take anything on hearsay. Always look up your authorities yourself. Moreover"—and he looked severely at Tutt—"the cerebral fluid—like malt extract—tends to become cloudy with age."
"Well, anyhow, I'm no Samson," protested Tutt. "And I haven't met anyone that looked like a Delilah. I guess after the procession of adventuresses that have trailed through this office in the last twenty years I'm reasonably safe."
"No man is safe," meditated Mr. Tutt. "For the reason that no man knows the power of expansion of his heart. ”

“ Mr. Tutt had signed the checks and handed them to him on his way out of the office, and now the scrivener kept doggedly on at his monthly task of placing each one with its accompanying bill in a properly addressed stamped envelope. There were a lot of them, and everybody had left the office, as he had intended that they should, long before he finished. Mr. Gill was coming at half-past five with the case of Teague and Teague, and although Scraggs knew that it was impossible for him to pay for it, he nevertheless did not wish to lose his hold on the bootlegger, who, after all, was an old friend. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Tutt's comfortable, dingy old library; of a fur coat suddenly clapped upon the rounded shoulders of old Scraggs, the antiquated scrivener in the accountant's cage in the outer office, whose alcoholic career, his employer alleged, was marked by a trail of empty rum kegs, each one flying the white flag of surrender.
And yet old Ephraim Tutt could on occasion be cold as chiseled steel, and as hard. Any appeal from a child, a woman or an outcast always met with his ready response; but for the rich, successful and those in power he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring grudge. ”

“ Tutt poured out a glass of the malt extract.
"I feel the same way about a lot of things," Tutt hurried on. "Special demurrers, for instance. They bore me horribly. And supplementary proceedings get most frightfully upon my nerves."
"Exactly!" repeated Mr. Tutt.
"What do you mean by 'exactly?'" snapped Tutt.
"You're bored," explained his partner.
"Rather!" agreed Tutt. "Bored to death. Not with anything special, you understand; just everything. I feel as if I'd like to do something devilish."
"When a man feels like that he better go to a doctor," declared Mr. Tutt. ”

“ Mr. Tutt did not invite her to sit down. Coldly he replied: “Mrs. Baldwin, I cannot undertake any business for you.”
“What’s the matter?” she demanded acidly. “Isn’t my money as good as anybody else’s?”
He shook his shaggy head.
“No,” he returned shortly, “it isn’t. A lawyer has some choice in the matter of clients, and I want no business of yours.”
“That’s pretty good!” she cried, flushing. “You were ready enough to act as my attorney the last time I called on you and asked you to draw the codicil. What’s the matter? Are you scared of anything? ”

“ It was an age since he had made a hit with anybody, even a baby. For the moment he forgot all his misery.
“Goo-ee!” he replied, following up the communication with a series of those clucking sounds supposed to give gratification to the young. The infant squawked with delight, waving its arms, and the mother grinned appreciatively. Even if he were not the great Mr. Tutt, this was a nice man!
“Ho-ho! Good baby!” chirped Scraggs, descending from his stool and coming out of the cage. Then abandoning all reserve he suddenly began to sing——
“How sweet is the horn that sounds in the morn. ”

“ He got out a bottle of whiskey and took a stiff drink—neat. It made him feel much better, but he kept his coat on, and foraging for a cigarette in the top drawer of Bonnie Doon’s desk, lit it and sat down in the sag bottomed easy-chair in Tutt’s office.
He could look straight through the open door to where Mr. Tutt always sat at his rickety old desk. Although he had worked there half his life he had never been down at such an hour. The place seemed alive with spirits, not of the departed, but of those who spent their days there. ”

“ A hypersensitive conscience cost our widowed client ten thousand dollars! I say, leave well enough alone."
"'Well enough'! 'Well enough'!" snarled Mr. Tutt. "Are you going to constitute yourself the judge of what is well enough for a young man's soul? I give you fair warning, Tutt: he's heard your side of it, but before he gets through he's going to hear mine as well!"
Samuel Tutt turned a faint pink in the region of his collar.
"Why, certainly, Mr. Tutt!" he stammered. "Do so, by all means!"
"You jolly well bet I will!" replied Mr. Tutt, jamming on his stovepipe. ”

“ There is life in the old dog yet—old Tutt, we mean! So far Billy the Bloodhound has but opened the door and entered the court-room, and Mr. Tutt has but turned to gaze at him. Let us reserve our lamentations until we see what will happen when they meet. Will not the gods lend courage and strength to the kindly old lawyer, who never yet did aught but good, although mayhap he may have done it in queer ways? ”

“ Tutt? I'm seventy-one! And the two older girls got married long ago and I'm all alone except for Jessie, the youngest—and I haven't told her anything about it."
"Yes?" said Mr. Tutt sympathetically. "What haven't you told her about?"
"My trouble. You see, Jessie's not a well girl—she really ought to live out West somewhere, the doctor says—and Jim and I had saved up all these years so that after we were gone she would have something to live on. We saved twelve thousand dollars—and put it into Government bonds."
"You couldn't have anything safer, at any rate," remarked the lawyer. ”

“ Mr. Tutt and Mr. McKeever belonged to the same Saturday evening poker game at the Colophon Club, familiarly known as The Bible Class.
"'Morning, Tom," said Mr. Tutt. "This is my client, Mrs. Effingham. You hold her note, I believe, for ten thousand dollars secured by some government bonds. She has a use for those bonds and I thought that you might be willing to take my indorsement instead. You know I'm good for the money."
"Why, I guess we can accommodate her, Mr. Tutt!" answered the Chesterfieldian Mr. McKeever. "Certainly we can. Sit down, Mrs. Effingham, while I send for your bonds. ”

“ Tutt. "How on earth did old Doc manage to get hold of them?"
"It sold for only ten cents a share!" replied Miss Wiggin. "That would mean ten thousand dollars——"
"If Doc paid for it," supplemented Mr. Tutt. "Which he probably didn't. What's it selling for now?"
"It isn't selling at all."
Mr. Tutt pressed the button that summoned Willie.
"When you haven't anything better to do," he said to her, "why don't you go round and see what has become of—of—Horse's Neck Extension?"
"I will," assented Miss Wiggin. "It makes me feel rich just to talk about such things. I just love it." ”

“ Tutt encouragingly as he felt beneath the chair for his stovepipe hat. “Your mother and the children are going right on living in the apartment, and there is a woman who comes in every day to do the cooking and take care of them.”
“But who pays her?” asked the man in the frame hoarsely. “I had practically nothing in the bank.”
“Oh, that’s all right!” Mr. Tutt assured him. “The money is being advanced against the fifty thousand dollars which T. Otis Crabb will eventually pay you.” ”

“ But I understand that you want a jury of feather-weight crape-hangers—twelve bantam benedicts.”
“Precisely!” nodded Mr. Tutt. “I want twelve middle-aged adventurers in matrimony who look as if they hadn’t a friend in the world.”
“It’s too bad I can’t serve!” remarked Tutt with feeling.
When Mr. Tutt the following afternoon forced his way through the crowd in the court-room, and took his seat beside the freshly barbered Don Antonio at the table reserved for the prisoner and his counsel, he would have been captious indeed had he felt dissatisfaction with the jury which Tutt had selected. ”