Chapter VI: Part 6

"Nothing quite so bad as that!" she retorted. "It's merely that Mr. Samuel Tutt used his influence this afternoon to try to persuade a young man not to carry out his father's wishes--expressed in a legally ineffective way--and I think he succeeded--although I'm not quite sure."

"That must have been Payson Clifford," answered Mr. Tutt. "What were the paternal wishes?"

"Mr. Tutt found a letter with the will in which the father asked the son to give twenty-five thousand dollars to a Miss Sadie Burch."

"Miss Sadie Burch!" repeated Mr. Tutt. "And who is she?"

"Nobody knows," said Miss Wiggin. "But whoever she is, our responsibility stops with advising Mr. Payson Clifford that the letter has no legal effect. Mr. Tutt went further and tried to induce Mr. Clifford not to respect the request contained in it. That, it seems to me, is going too far. Don't you think so?"

"Are you certain you never heard of this Miss Burch?" suddenly asked Mr. Tutt, peering at her sharply from beneath his shaggy eyebrows.

"Never," she replied.

"H'm!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "A woman in the case!"

"What sort of a young fellow is this Payson Clifford?" inquired Miss Wiggin after a moment.

"Oh, not so much of a much!" answered Mr. Tutt whimsically.

"And what was the father like?" she continued with a woman's curiosity.

"He wasn't so much of a much, either, evidently," answered Mr. Tutt.

We have previously had occasion to comment upon the fact that no client, male or female, consults a lawyer with regard to what he ought to do. Women, often having decided to do that which they ought not to do, attempt to secure counsel's approval of the contemplated sin; but while a lawyer is sometimes called upon to bolster up a guilty conscience, rarely is he sincerely invited to act as spiritual adviser. Most men being worse than their lawyers, prefer not to have the latter find them out. If they have made up their minds to do a mean thing they do not wish to run the chance of having their lawyer shame them out of it. That is their own business. And it should be! The law presents sufficiently perplexing problems for the lawyer without his seeking trouble in the dubious complexities of his client's morals! Anyhow, that is the regulation way a lawyer looks at it and that is the way to hold one's clients. Do what you are instructed to do--so long as it isn't too raw! Question the propriety of his course and while your client may follow your advice in this single instance he probably will not return again.

The paradoxical aspect of the matter with Mr. Tutt was that while he was known as a criminal lawyer whenever he was asked for advice he concerned himself quite as much with his client's moral as his legal duty. The rather subtle reason for this was probably to be found in the fact that since he found the law so easy to circumvent he preferred to disregard it entirely as a sanction of conduct and merely to ask himself "Now is this what a sportsman and a gentleman would do?" The fact that a man was a technical criminal meant nothing to him at all; what interested him was whether the man was or was not a "mean" man. If he was, to hell with him! In a word, he applied to any given situation the law as it ought to be and not the law as it was. A very easy and flexible test! say you, sarcastically. Do you really think so? There may be forty different laws upon the same subject in as many different states of our political union, but how many differing points of view upon any single moral question would you find among as many citizens? The moral code of decent people is practically the same all over the terrestrial ball, and fundamentally it has not changed since the days of Hammurabi. The ideas of gentlemen and sportsmen as to what "is done" and "isn't done" haven't changed since Fabius Tullius caught snipe in the Pontine marshes.

Mr. Tutt was a crank on this general subject and he carried his enthusiasm so far that he was always tilting like Don Quixote at some imaginary windmill, dragging a very unwilling Sancho Panza after him in the form of his reluctant partner. Moreover, he had a very keen sympathy for all kinds of outcasts, deeming most of them victims of the sins of their own or somebody's else fathers. So when he learned from Miss Wiggin that Tutt had presumed to interfere with the financial prospects of the unknown Miss Sadie Burch he was distinctly aggrieved, less on her account to be sure than upon that of his client's whom he regarded more or less in his keeping. And, as luck would have it, the object of his grievance, having forgotten something, at that moment unexpectedly reentered the office to retrieve it.

"Hello, Mr. Tutt!" he exclaimed. "Not gone yet!"

His senior partner glanced at him sharply, while Miss Wiggin hastily sidestepped into the corridor.

"Look here, Tutt!" said Mr. Tutt. "I don't know just what you've been telling young Clifford, or how you've been interfering in his private affairs, but if you've been persuading him to disregard any wish of his father plainly expressed in his own handwriting and incorporated with his will you've gone further than you've any right to go."

"But," expostulated Tutt, "you know how dangerous it is to meddle with things like that. Our experience certainly shows that it's far wiser to let the law settle all doubtful questions than to try to guess what the final testamentary intention of a dead testator really was. Don't you remember the Dodworth case? 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.

Several days passed, however, without the subject being mentioned further, while the proper steps to probate the will were taken as usual. Payson Clifford's dilemma had no legal reaction. He had made up his mind and he was going to stick to it. He had taken the opinion of counsel and was fully satisfied with what he had done. Nobody was going to know anything about it, anyway. When the proper time came he would burn the Sadie Burch letter and forget Sadie Burch. That is, he thought he was going to and that he could. But--as Plautus says: "_Nihil est miserius quam animus hominis conscius_."

You see, Payson Clifford, having been sent to a decent school and a decent college, irrespective of whether his father was a rotter or not, had imbibed something of a sense of honor. Struggle as he would against it, the shadow of Sadie Burch kept creeping athwart his mind. There were so many possibilities! Suppose she was in desperate straits? Hadn't he better look her up, anyhow? No, he most definitely didn't want to know anything about her! Supposing she really had rendered some service to his father for which she ought to be repaid as he had sought to repay her? These thoughts obtruded themselves upon Payson's attention when he least desired it, but they did not cause him to alter his intention to get his hooks into his father's whole residuary estate and keep it for himself. He had, you observe, a conscience, but it couldn't stand up against twenty-five thousand dollars reinforced by perfectly sound legal arguments.

No, he had a good excuse for not being a gentleman and a sportsman and he did not purpose to look for any reasons for doing differently. Then unexpectedly he was invited to dinner by Mr. Ephraim Tutt in a funny old ramshackle house on West Twenty-third Street with ornamented iron piazza railings all covered with the withered stalks of long dead wistarias, and something happened to him. "Payson Clifford's Twenty-five Thousand Dollar Dinner." He had no suspicion, of course, what was coming to him when he went there,--went, merely because Mr. Tutt was one of the very few friends of his father that he knew. And he held towards the old lawyer rather the same sort of patronizing attitude that he had had towards the old man. It would be a rotten dinner probably followed by a deadly dull evening with a snuffy old fossil who would tell him long-winded, rambling anecdotes of what New York had been like when there were wild goats in Central Park.

The snuffy old fossil, however, made no reference whatever to either old New York or wild goats,--the nearest he came to it being wild oats. Instead he began the dreary evening by opening a cupboard on his library wall and disclosing three long bottles, from which he partially filled a shining silver receptacle containing cracked ice. This he shook with astonishing skill and vigor, meantime uttering loud outcries of "Miranda! Fetch up the mint!" Then a buxom colored lady in calico--with a grin like that which made Aunt Sallie famous--having appeared, panting, with two large glasses and a bundle of green herbage upon a silver salver, the old fossil poured out a seething decoction--of which like only the memory remains--performed an incantation over each glass with the odoriferous greens, smiled fondly upon the work of his hands and remarked with amiable hospitality, "Well, my son! Glad to see you!--Here's how!"

Almost immediately a benign animal magnetism pervaded the bosom of Payson Clifford, and from his bosom reached out through his arteries and veins, his arterioles and venioles, to the uttermost ends of his being. He perceived in an instant that Mr. Tutt was no ordinary man and his house no ordinary house; and this impression was intensified when, seated at his host's shining mahogany table with its heavy cut glass and queer old silver, he discovered that Miranda was no ordinary cook. He began to be inflated over having discovered this Mr. Tutt, who pressed succulent oysters and terrapin stew upon him, accompanied by a foaming bottle of Krug '98. He found himself possessed of an astounding appetite and a prodigious thirst. The gas lights in the old bronze chandelier shone like a galaxy of radiant suns above his head and warmed him through and through. And after the terrapin Miranda brought in a smoking wild turkey with two quail roasted inside of it, and served with currant jelly, rice cakes, and sweet potatoes fried in melted sugar. Then, as in a dream, he heard a soul-satisfying pop and Miranda placed a tall, amber glass at his wrist and filled it with the creaming redrose wine of ancient Burgundy. He heard himself telling Mr. Tutt all about himself,--the most intimate secrets of his heart,--and saw Mr. Tutt listening attentively, almost reverently. He perceived that he was making an astonishing impression upon Mr. Tutt who obviously thought him a great man; and after keeping him in reasonable doubt about it for awhile he modestly admitted to Mr. Tutt that this was so. Then he drank several more glasses of Burgundy and ate an enormous pile of waffles covered with maple syrup. "I'se in town, honey!" Mr. Tutt had grown several sizes larger--the whole room was full of him. Lastly he had black coffee and some port. It was an occasion, he asserted,--er--always goo' weather,--or somethin'--when goo' fellows got together! He declared with an emphasis which was quite unnecessary, but which, however, did not disturb him, that there were too few men like themselves in the world,--men with the advantage of education,--men of ideals. He told Mr. Tutt that he loved him. He no longer had a father, and, evidently relying on further similar entertainments, he wanted Mr. Tutt for one. Mr. Tutt generously assented to act in that capacity and as the first step assisted his guest upstairs to the library where he opened the window a few inches.

Presently, Payson did not know how exactly, they got talking all about life,--and Mr. Tutt said ruminatively that after all the only things that really counted were loyalty and courage and kindness,--and that a little human sympathy extended even in what sometimes seemed at first glance the wrong direction often did more good--made more for real happiness--than the most efficient organized charity. He spoke of the loneliness of age--the inevitable loneliness of the human soul,--the thirst for daily affection. And then they drifted off to college, and Mr. Tutt inquired casually if Payson had seen much of his father, who, he took occasion to remark, had been a good type of straightforward, honest, hard-working business man.

Payson, smoking his third cigar, and taking now and then a dash of cognac, began to think better of his old dad. He really hadn't paid him quite the proper attention. He admitted it to Mr. Tutt--with the first genuine tears in his eyes since he had left Cambridge;--perhaps, if he had been more to him--. But Mr. Tutt veered off again--this time on university education; the invaluable function of the university being, he said, to preserve intact and untarnished in a materialistic age the spiritual ideals inherited from the past.

In this rather commonplace sentiment Payson agreed with him passionately. He further agreed with equal enthusiasm when his host advanced the doctrine that after all to preserve one's honor stainless was the only thing that much mattered. Absolutely! declared Payson, as he allowed Mr. Tutt to press another glass of port upon him.

Payson, in spite of the slight beading of his forehead and the blurr about the gas jets, began to feel very much the man of the world,--not a "six bottle man" perhaps, but--and he laughed complacently--a "two bottle man." If he'd lived back in the good old sporting days very likely he could have done better. But he's taken care of two full bottles, hadn't he? Mr. Tutt replied that he'd taken care of them very well indeed. And with this opening the old lawyer launched into his favorite topic,--to wit, that there were only two sorts of men in the world--gentlemen, and those who were not. What made a man a gentleman was gallantry and loyalty,--the readiness to sacrifice everything--even life--to an ideal. The hero was the chap who never counted the cost to himself. That was why people revered the saints, acclaimed the cavalier, and admired the big-hearted gambler who was ready to stake his fortune on the turn of a card. There was even, he averred, an element of spirituality in the gambler's carelessness about money.

This theory greatly interested Payson, who held strongly with it, having always had a secret, sneaking fondness for gamblers. On the strength of it he mentioned Charles James Fox--there was a true gentleman and sportsman for you! No mollycoddle--but a roaring, six bottle fellow--with a big brain and a scrupulous sense of honor. Yes, sir! Charley Fox was the right sort! He managed to intimate successfully that Charley and he were very much the same breed of pup. At this point Mr. Tutt, having carefully committed his guest to an ethical standard as far removed as possible from one based upon self-interest, opened the window a few more inches, sauntered over to the mantel, lit a fresh stogy and spread his long legs in front of the sea-coal fire like an elongated Colossus of Rhodes. He commenced his dastardly countermining of his partner's advice by complimenting Payson on being a man whose words, manner and appearance proclaimed him to the world a true sport and a regular fellow. From which flattering prologue he slid naturally into said regular fellow's prospects and aims in life. He trusted that Payson Clifford, Senior, had left a sufficient estate to enable Payson, Junior, to complete his education at Harvard?--He forgot, he confessed just what the residue amounted to. Then he turned to the fire, kicked it, knocked the ash off the end of his stogy and waited--in order to give his guest a chance to come to himself,--for Mr. Payson Clifford had suddenly turned a curious color, due to the fact that he was unexpectedly confronted with the necessity of definitely deciding then and there whether he was going to line up with the regular fellows or the second raters, the gentlemen or the cads, the C.J. Foxes or the Benedict Arnolds of mankind. He wasn't wholly the real thing, a conceited young ass, if you choose, but on the other hand he wasn't by any means a bad sort. In short, he was very much like all the rest of us. And he wasn't ready to sign the pledge just yet. He realized that he had put himself at a disadvantage, but he wasn't going to commit himself until he had had a good chance to think it all over carefully. In thirty seconds he was sober as a judge--and a sober judge at that.

"Mr. Tutt," he said in quite a different tone of voice. "I've been talking pretty big, I guess,--bigger than I really am. The fact is I've got a problem of my own that's bothering me a lot."

Mr. Tutt nodded understandingly.

"You mean Sadie Burch."

"Yes."

"Well, what's the problem? Your father wanted you to give her the money, didn't he?"

Payson hesitated. What he was about to say seemed so disingenuous, even though it had originated with Tutt & Tutt.

"How do I know really what he wanted? He may have changed his mind a dozen times since he put it with his will."

"If he had he wouldn't have left it there, would he?" asked Mr. Tutt with a smile.

"But perhaps he forgot all about it,--didn't remember that it was there," persisted the youth, still clinging desperately to the lesser Tutt. "And, if he hadn't would have torn it up."

"That might be equally true of the provisions of his will, might it not?" countered the lawyer.

"But," squirmed Payson, struggling to recall Tutt's arguments, previously so convincing, "he knew how a will ought to be executed and as he deliberately neglected to execute the paper in a legal fashion, isn't it fair to presume that he did not intend it to have any legal force?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Tutt with entire equanimity, "I agree with you that it is fair to assume that he did not intend it to have any legal effect."

"Well, then!" exclaimed Payson exultantly.

"But," continued the lawyer, "that does not prove that he did not intend it to have a moral effect,--and expect you to honor and respect his wishes, just as if he had whispered them to you with his dying breath."

There was something in his demeanor which, while courteous, had a touch of severity, that made Payson feel abashed. He perceived that he could not afford to let Mr. Tutt think him a cad,--when he was really a C.J. Fox. And in his mental floundering his brain came into contact with the only logical straw in the entire controversy.

"Ah!" he said with an assumption of candor. "In that case I should know positively that they were in fact my father's wishes."

"Exactly!" replied Mr. Tutt. "And you'd carry them out without a moment's hesitation."

"Of course!" yielded Payson.

"Then the whole question is whether or not this paper does express a wish of his. That problem is a real problem, and it is for you alone to solve,--and, of course, you're under the disadvantage of having a financial interest in the result, which makes it doubly hard."

"All the same," maintained the boy, "I want to be fair to myself."

"--And to him," added Mr. Tutt solemnly. "The fact that this wish is not expressed in such a way as to be legally obligatory makes it all the more binding. In a way, I suppose, that is your hard luck. You might, perhaps, fight a provision in the will. You can't fight this--or disregard it, either."

"I don't exactly see why this is any _more_ binding than a provision in the will itself!" protested Payson.

Mr. Tutt threw his stogy into the fire and fumbled for another in the long box on the library table.

"Maybe it isn't," he conceded, "but I've always liked that specious anecdote attributed to Sheridan who paid his gambling debts and let his tailor wait. You remember it, of course? When the tailor demanded the reason for this Sheridan told him that a gambling debt was a debt of honor and a tailor's bill was not, since his fortunate adversary at the card table had only his promise to pay, whereas the tailor possessed an action for an account which he could prosecute in the courts.

"'In that case!' declared the tailor, 'I'll tear up my bill!' which he did, and Sheridan thereupon promptly paid him. Have another nip of brandy?"

"No, thank you!" answered Payson. "It's getting late and I must be going. I've--I've had a perfectly--er--ripping time!"

"You must come again soon!" said Mr. Tutt warmly, from the top of the steps outside.

As Payson reached the sidewalk he looked back somewhat shamefacedly and said:

"Do you think it makes any difference what sort of a person this Sadie Burch is?"

In the yellow light of the street lamp it seemed to the collegian as if the face of the old man bore for an instant a fleeting resemblance to that of his father.

"Not one particle!" he answered. "Good night, my boy!"

But Payson Clifford did not have a good night by any manner of means. Instead of returning to his hotel he wandered aimless and miserable along the river front. He no longer had any doubt as to his duty. Mr. Tutt had demolished Tutt in a breath,--and put the whole proposition clearly. Tutt had given, as it were, and Mr. Tutt had taken away. However, he told himself, that wasn't all there was to it; the money was his in law and no one could deprive him of it. Why not sit tight and let Mr. Tutt go to the devil? He need never see him again! And no one else would ever know! Twenty-five thousand dollars? It would take him years to earn such a staggering sum! Besides, there were two distinct sides to the question. Wasn't Tutt just as good a lawyer as Mr. Tutt? Couldn't he properly decide in favor of himself when the court was equally divided? And Tutt had said emphatically that he would be a fool to surrender the money. 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. Then you take no chances!"

But in the end--along about a quarter to seven A.M.--Mr. Tutt won. Exhausted, but at peace with himself, Payson Clifford stumbled into the Harvard Club on Forty-fourth Street, ordered three fried eggs done on one side, two orders of bacon and a pot of coffee, and then wrote a letter which he dispatched by a messenger to Tutt & Tutt.

"Gentlemen," it read: "Will you kindly take immediate steps to find Miss Sarah Burch and pay over to her twenty-five thousand dollars from my father's residuary estate. I am entirely satisfied that this was his wish. I am returning to Cambridge to-day. If necessary you can communicate with me there.

"Yours very truly,

"PAYSON CLIFFORD."

* * * * *

One might suppose that a legatee to twenty-five thousand dollars could be readily found; but Miss Sadie Burch proved a most elusive person. No Burches grew in Hoboken--according to either the telephone or the business directory--and Mr. Tutt's repeated advertisements in the newspapers of that city elicited no response. Three months went by and it began to look as if the lady had either died or permanently absented herself--and that Payson Clifford might be able to keep his twenty-five thousand with a clear conscience. Then one day in May came a letter from a small town in the central part of New Jersey from Sadie Burch. She had, she said, only just learned entirely by accident that she was an object of interest to Messrs. Tutt & Tutt. Unfortunately, it was not convenient for her to come to New York City, but if she could be of any service to them she would be pleased, etc.

"I think I'll give the lady the once-over!" remarked Mr. Tutt, as he looked across the glittering bay to the shadowy hills of New Jersey. "It's a wonderful day, and there isn't much to do here...."

* * * * *

"Sadie Burch? Sadie Burch? Sure, I know her!" answered the lanky man driving the flivver tractor nearby, as he inspected the motor carrying Mr. Tutt. "She lives in the second house beyond the big elm--" and he started plowing again with a great clatter.

The road glared white in the late afternoon sun. On either side stretched miles of carefully cultivated fields, the country drowsed, the air hot, but sweet with magnolia, lilac and apple blossoms. Miss Burch had obviously determined that when she retired from the world of men she would make a thorough job of it and expose herself to no temptation to return--eight miles from the nearest railroad. Just beyond the elms they slowed up alongside a white picket fence enclosing an old-fashioned garden whence came to Mr. Tutt the busy murmur of bees. Then they came to a gate that opened upon a red-tiled, box-bordered, moss-grown walk, leading to a small white house with blue and white striped awnings. A green and gold lizard poked its head out of the hedge and eyed Mr. Tutt rather with curiosity than hostility.

"Does Miss Sadie Burch live here?" asked Mr. Tutt of the lizard.

"Yes!" answered a cheerful female voice from the veranda. "Won't you come up on the piazza?"

The voice was not the kind of voice Mr. Tutt had imagined as belonging to Sadie Burch. But neither was the lady on the piazza that kind of lady. In the shadow of the awning in a comfortable rocking chair sat a white-haired, kindly-faced woman, knitting a baby jacket. She looked up at him with a friendly smile.

"I'm Miss Burch," she said. "I suppose you're that lawyer I wrote to? Won't you come up and sit down?"

"Thanks," he replied, drawing nearer with an answering smile. "I can only stay a few moments and I've been sitting in the motor most of the day. I might as well come to the point at once. You have doubtless heard of the death of Mr. Payson Clifford, Senior?"

Miss Burch laid down the baby-jacket and her lips quivered. Then the tears welled in her faded blue eyes and she fumbled hastily in her bosom for her handkerchief.

"You must excuse me!" she said in a choked voice. "--Yes, I read about it. He was the best friend I had in the world,--except my brother John. The kindest, truest friend that ever lived!"

She looked out across the little garden and wiped her eyes again.

Mr. Tutt sat down upon the moss-covered door-step beside her.

"I always thought he was a good man," he returned quietly. "He was an old client of mine--although I didn't know him very well."

"I owe this house to him," continued Miss Burch tenderly. "If it hadn't been for Mr. Clifford I don't know what would have become of me. Now that John is dead and I'm all alone in the world this little place--with the flowers and the bees--is all I've got."

They were silent for several moments. Then Mr. Tutt said:

"No, it isn't all. Mr. Clifford left a letter with his will in which he instructed his son to pay you twenty-five thousand dollars. I'm here to give it to you."

A puzzled look came over her face, and then she smiled again and shook her head.

"That was just like him!" she remarked. "But it's all a mistake. He paid me back that money five years ago. You see he persuaded John to go into some kind of a business scheme with him and they lost all they put into it--twenty-five thousand apiece. It was all we had. It wasn't his fault, but after John died Mr. Clifford made me--simply made me--let him give the money back. He must have written the letter before that and forgotten all about it!"

You're Another!

"We have strict statutes, and most biting laws."
Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 4.

"I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no
laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have."

Montaigne. Of Experience, Chapter XIII.

Mrs. Pierpont Pumpelly, lawful spouse of Vice President Pumpelly, of Cuban Crucible, erstwhile of Athens, Ohio, was fully conscious that even if she wasn't the smartest thing on Fifth Avenue, her snappy little car was. It was, as she said, a "perfec' beejew!" The two robes of silver fox alone had cost eighty-five hundred dollars, but that was nothing; Mrs. Pumpelly--in her stockings--cost Pierpont at least ten times that every year. But he could afford it with Cruce at 791. So, having moved from Athens to the metropolis, they had a glorious time. Out home the Pierpont had been simply a P. and no questions asked as to what it stood for; P. Pumpelly. But whatever its past the P. had now blossomed definitely into Pierpont.

Though the said Pierpont produced the wherewithal, it was his wife, Edna, who attended to the disbursing of it. She loved her husband, but regarded him socially as somewhat of a liability, and Society was now, as she informed everybody, her "meal yure."

She had eaten her way straight through the meal--opera box, pew at St. Simeon Stylites, Crystal Room, musicales, Carusals, hospital entertainments, Malted Milk for Freezing France, Inns for Indigent Italians, Biscuits for Bereft Belgians, dinner parties, lunch parties, supper parties, the whole thing; and a lot of the right people had come, too.

The fly in the ointment of her social happiness--and unfortunately it happened to be an extremely gaudy butterfly indeed--was her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Rutherford Wells, who obstinately refused to recognize her existence.

At home, in Athens, Edna would have resorted to the simple expedient of sending over the hired girl to borrow something. But here there was nothing doing. Mrs. Rutherford had probably never seen her own chef and Mrs. Pumpelly was afraid of hers. Besides, even Edna recognized the lamentable fact that it was up to Mrs. Wells to call first, which she didn't. Once when the ladies had emerged simultaneously from their domiciles Mrs. Pumpelly had smilingly waddled forward a few steps with an ingratiating bow, but Mrs. Wells had looked over her head and hadn't seen her.

Thereupon the iron had entered into Mrs. Pumpelly's soul and her life had become wormwood and gall, ashes in her mouth and all the rest of it. She proposed to get even with the cat at the very first chance, but somehow the chance never seemed to come. She hated to be living on the same street with that kind of nasty person. And who was this Wells woman? Her husband never did a thing except play croquet or something at a club! He probably was a drunkard--and a roo-ay. Mrs. Pumpelly soon convinced herself that Mrs. Wells also must be a very undesirable, if not hopelessly immoral lady. Anyhow, she made up her mind that she would certainly take nothing further from her. Even if Mrs. Wells should have a change of heart and see fit to call, she just wouldn't return it! So when she rolled up in the diminutive car and found Mrs. Wells' lumbering limousine blocking the doorway she was simply furious.

"Make that man move along!" she directed, and Jules honked and honked, but the limousine did not budge.

Then Mrs. Pumpelly gave way to a fit of indignation that would have done her proud even in Athens, Ohio. Fire-breathing, she descended from her car and, approaching the limousine, told the imperturbable chauffeur that even if he did work for Mrs. Rutherford Wells, Mrs. Rutherford Wells was no better than anybody else, and that gave him no right to block up the whole street. She spoke loudly, emphatically, angrily, and right in the middle of it the chauffeur, who had not deigned to look in her direction, slyly pressed the electric button of his horn and caused it to emit a low scornful grunt. Then a footman opened the door of the Wells mansion and Mrs. Rutherford Wells herself came down the steps, and Mrs. Pumpelly told her to her face exactly what she thought of her and ordered her to move her car along so her own could get in front of the vestibule.

Mrs. Wells ignored her. Deliberately--and as if there were no such person as Mrs. Pumpelly upon the sidewalk--she stepped into her motor and, the chauffeur having adjusted the robe, she remarked in a casual, almost indifferent manner that nevertheless made Mrs. Pumpelly squirm, "Go to Mr. Hepplewhite's, William. Pay no attention to that woman. If she makes any further disturbance call a policeman."

And the limousine rolled away with a sneer at Mrs. Pumpelly from the exhaust. More than one king has been dethroned for far less cause!

* * * * *

"You telephone Mr. Edgerton," she almost shrieked at Simmons, the butler, "that he should come right up here as fast as he can. I've got to see him at once!"

"Very good, madam," answered Simmons obsequiously.

And without more ado, in less than forty minutes, the distinguished Mr. Wilfred Edgerton, of Edgerton & Edgerton, attorneys for Cuban Crucible and hence alert to obey the behests of the wives of the officers thereof, had deposited his tall silk hat on the marble Renaissance table in the front hall and was entering Mrs. Pumpelly's Louis Quinze drawing-room with the air of a Sir Walter Raleigh approaching his Queen Elizabeth.

"Sit down, Mr. Edgerton!" directed the lady impressively. "No, you'll find that other chair more comfortable; the one you're in's got a hump in the seat. As I was saying to the butler before you came, I've been insulted and I propose to teach that woman she can't make small of me no matter what it costs--and Pierpont says you're no slouch of a charger at that."

"My dear madam!" stammered the embarrassed attorney. "Of course, there are lawyers and lawyers. But if you wish the best I feel sure my firm charges no more than others of equal standing. In any event you can be assured of our devotion to your interests. Now what, may I ask, are the circumstances of the case?"

"Mr. Edgerton," she began, "I just want you should listen carefully to what I have to say. This woman next door to me here has--"

At this point, as paper is precious and the lady voluble, we will drop the curtain upon the first act of our legal comedy.

* * * * *

"I suppose we'll have to do it for her!" growled Mr. Wilfred Edgerton to his brother on his return to their office. "She's a crazy idiot and I'm very much afraid we'll all get involved in a good deal of undesirable publicity. Still, she's the wife of the vice president of our best paying client!"

"What does she want us to do?" asked Mr. Winfred, the other Edgerton. "We can't afford to be made ridiculous--for anybody."

This was quite true since dignity was Edgerton & Edgerton's long suit, they being the variety of Wall Street lawyers who are said to sleep in their tall hats and cutaways.

"If you can imagine it," replied his brother irritably, "she insists on our having Mrs. Wells arrested for obstructing the street in front of her house. She asked me if it wasn't against the law, and I took a chance and told her it was. Then she wanted to start for the police court at once, but as I'd never been in one I said we'd have to prepare the papers; I didn't know what papers."

"But we can't arrest Mrs. Wells!" expostulated Mr. Winfred Edgerton. "She's socially one of our most prominent people. I dined with her only last week!"

"That's why Mrs. Pumpelly wants to have her arrested, I fancy!" replied Mr. Wilfred gloomily. "Mrs. Wells has given her the cold shoulder. It's no use; I tried to argue the old girl out of it, but I couldn't. She knows what she wants and she jolly well intends to have it."

"I wish you joy of her!" mournfully rejoined the younger Edgerton. "But it's your funeral. I can't help you. I never got anybody arrested and I haven't the least idea how to go about it."

"Neither have I," admitted his brother. "Luckily my practise has not been of that sort. However, it can't be a difficult matter. The main thing is to know exactly what we are trying to arrest Mrs. Wells for."

"Why don't you retain Tutt & Tutt to do it for us?" suggested Winfred. "Criminal attorneys are used to all that sort of rotten business."

"Oh, it wouldn't do to let Pumpelly suspect we couldn't handle it ourselves. Besides, the lady wants distinguished counsel to represent her. No, for once we've got to lay dignity aside. I think I'll send Maddox up to the Criminal Courts Building and have him find out just what to do."

It may seem remarkable that neither of the members of a high-class law firm in New York City should ever have been in a police court, but such a situation is by no means infrequent. The county or small-town attorney knows his business from the ground up. He starts with assault and battery, petty larceny and collection cases and gradually works his way up, so to speak, to murder and corporate reorganizations. But in Wall Street the young student whose ambition is to appear before the Supreme Court of the United States in some constitutional matter as soon as possible is apt to spend his early years in brief writing and then become a specialist in real estate, corporation, admiralty or probate law and perhaps never see the inside of a trial court at all, much less a police court, which, to the poor and ignorant, at any rate, is the most important court of any of them, since it is here that the citizen must go to enforce his everyday rights.

Mr. Wilfred Edgerton suspected that a magistrate's court was a dirty sort of hole, full of brawling shyster lawyers, and he didn't want to know any more about such places than he could help. Theoretically he was aware that on a proper complaint sworn to by a person supposing himself or herself criminally aggrieved the judge would issue a warrant to an officer, who would execute it on the person of the criminal and hale him or her to jail. The idea of Mrs. Wells being dragged shrieking down Fifth Avenue or being carted away from her house in a Black Maria filled him with dismay.

Yet that was what Mrs. Pumpelly proposed to have done, and unfortunately he had to do exactly what Mrs. Pumpelly said; quickly too.

"Maddox," he called to a timid youth in a green eye-shade sitting in lonely grandeur in the spacious library, "just run up to the--er--magistrate's court on Blank Street and ascertain the proper procedure for punishing a person for obstructing the highway. If you find an appropriate statute or ordinance you may lay an information against Mrs. Rutherford Wells for violating it this afternoon in front of the residence next to hers; and see that the proper process issues in the regular way."

To hear him one would have thought he did things like that daily before breakfast--such is the effect of legal jargon.

"Yes, sir," answered Maddox respectfully, making a note. "Do you wish to have the warrant held or executed?"

Mr. Wilfred Edgerton bit his mustache doubtfully.

"We-ell," he answered at length, perceiving that he stood upon the brink of a legal Rubicon, "you may do whatever seems advisable under all the circumstances."

In his nervous condition he did not recall what, had he stopped calmly to consider the matter, he must have known very well--namely, that no warrant could possibly issue unless Mrs. Pumpelly, as complainant, signed and swore to the information herself.

"Very well, sir," answered Maddox, in the same tone and manner that he would have used had he been a second footman at Mrs. Pumpelly's.

Thereafter both Edgertons, but particularly Wilfred, passed a miserable hour. They realized that they had started something and they had no idea of where, how or when what they had started would stop. Indeed they had terrifying visions of Mrs. Wells being beaten into insensibility, if not into a pulp, by a cohort of brutal police officers, and of their being held personally responsible. But before anything of that sort actually happened Maddox returned.

"Well," inquired Wilfred with an assumption of nonchalance, "what did you find out?"

"The magistrate said that we would have to apply at the court in the district where the offense occurred and that Mrs. Pumpelly would have to appear there in person. Obstructing a highway is a violation of Section Two of Article Two of the Police Department Regulations for Street Traffic, which reads: 'A vehicle waiting at the curb shall promptly give way to a vehicle arriving to take up or set down passengers.' It is not usual to issue a warrant in such cases, but a summons merely."

"Ah!" sighed both Edgertons in great relief.

"Upon which the defendant must appear in default of fine or imprisonment," continued Maddox.

The two lawyers looked at one another inquiringly.

"Did they treat you--er--with politeness?" asked Wilfred curiously.

"Oh, well enough," answered the clerk. "I can't say it's a place I hanker to have much to do with. It's not like an afternoon tea party. But it's all right. Do you wish me to do anything further?"

"Yes!" replied Wilfred with emphasis, "I do. I wish you would go right up to Mrs. Pumpelly's house, conduct that lady to the nearest police court and have her swear out the summons for Mrs. Wells herself. I'll telephone her that you are coming."

Which was a wise conclusion, in view of the fact that Edna Pumpelly, née Haskins, was much better equipped by nature to take care of Mr. Wilfred Edgerton in the hectic environs of a police court than he was qualified to take care of her. And so it was that just as Mrs. Rutherford Wells was about to sit down to tea with several fashionable friends her butler entered, bearing upon a salver a printed paper, which he presented to her, in manner and form the following:

CITY MAGISTRATE'S COURT, CITY OF NEW YORK

In the name of the people of the State of New York To "Jane" Wells,
the name "Jane" being fictitious:

You are hereby summoned to appear before the ------ District
Magistrate's Court, Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, on the
eighth day of May, 1920, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, to answer
the charge made against you by Edna Pumpelly for violation of
Section Two, Article Two of the Traffic Regulations providing that a
vehicle waiting at the curb shall promptly give way to a vehicle
arriving to take up or set down passengers, and upon your failure to
appear at the time and place herein mentioned you are liable to a
fine of not exceeding fifty dollars or to imprisonment of not
exceeding ten days or both.

Dated 6th day of May, 1920.

JAMES CUDDAHEY, Police Officer,

Police Precinct ------, New York City.

Attest: JOHN J. JONES, Chief City Magistrate.

"Heavens!" cried Mrs. Wells as she read this formidable document. "What a horrible woman! What shall I do?"

Mr. John De Puyster Hepplewhite, one of the nicest men in New York, who had himself once had a somewhat interesting experience in the criminal courts in connection with the arrest of a tramp who had gone to sleep in a pink silk bed in the Hepplewhite mansion on Fifth Avenue, smiled deprecatingly, set down his Dresden-china cup and dabbed his mustache decorously with a filigree napkin.

"Dear lady," he remarked with conviction, "in such distressing circumstances I have no hesitation whatever in advising you to consult Mr. Ephraim Tutt."

* * * * *

"I have been thinking over what you said the other day regarding the relationship of crime to progress, Mr. Tutt, and I'm rather of the opinion that it's rot," announced Tutt as he strolled across from his own office to that of his senior partner for a cup of tea at practically the very moment when Mr. Hepplewhite was advising Mrs. Wells. "In the vernacular--bunk."

"What did he say?" asked Miss Wiggin, rinsing out with hot water Tutt's special blue-china cup, in the bottom of which had accumulated some reddish-brown dust from Mason & Welsby's Admiralty and Divorce Reports upon the adjacent shelf.

"He made the point," answered Tutt, helping himself to a piece of toast, "that crime was--if I may be permitted to use the figure--part of the onward urge of humanity toward a new and perhaps better social order; a natural impulse to rebel against existing abuses; and he made the claim that though an unsuccessful revolutionary was of course regarded as a criminal, on the other hand, if successful he at once became a patriot, a hero, a statesman or a saint."

"A very dangerous general doctrine, I should say," remarked Miss Wiggin. "I should think it all depended on what sort of laws he was rebelling against. I don't see how a murderer could ever be regarded as assisting in the onward urge toward sweetness and light, exactly."

"Wouldn't it depend somewhat on whom you were murdering?" inquired Mr. Tutt, finally succeeding in his attempt to make a damp stogy continue in a state of combustion. "If you murdered a tyrant wouldn't you be contributing toward progress?"

"No," retorted Miss Wiggin, "you wouldn't; and you know it. In certain cases where the laws are manifestly unjust, antiquated or perhaps do not really represent the moral sense of the community their violation may occasionally call attention to their absurdity, like the famous blue laws of Connecticut, for example; but as the laws as a whole do crystallize the general opinion of what is right and desirable in matters of conduct a movement toward progress would be exhibited not by breaking laws but by making laws."

"But," argued Mr. Tutt, abandoning his stogy, "isn't the making of a new law the same thing as changing an old law? And isn't changing a law essentially the same thing as breaking it?"

"It isn't," replied Miss Wiggin tartly. "For the obvious and simple reason that the legislators who change the laws have the right to do so, while the man who breaks them has not."

"All the same," admitted Tutt, slightly wavering, "I see what Mr. Tutt means."

"Oh, I see what he means!" sniffed Miss Wiggin. "I was only combating what he said!"

"But the making of laws does not demonstrate progress," perversely insisted Mr. Tutt. "The more statutes you pass the more it indicates that you need 'em. An ideal community would have no laws at all."

"There's a thought!" interjected Tutt. "And there wouldn't be any lawyers either!"

"As King Hal said: 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers,'" commented Mr. Tutt.

"Awful vision!" ejaculated Miss Wiggin. "Luckily for us, that day has not yet dawned. However, Mr. Tutt's argument is blatantly fallacious. Of course, the making of new laws indicates an impulse toward social betterment--and therefore toward progress."

"It seems to me," ventured Tutt, "that this conversation is more than usually theoretical--not to say specious! The fact of the matter is that the law is a part of our civilization and the state of the law marks the stage of our development--more or less."

Mr. Tutt smiled sardonically.

"You have enunciated two great truths," said he. "First, that it is a 'part'; and second, 'more or less.' The law is a very small part of our protection against what is harmful to us. It is only one of our sanctions of conduct, and a very crude one at that. Did you ever stop to think that compared with religion the efficacy of the law was almost _nil_? The law deals with conduct, but only at a certain point. We are apt to find fault with it because it makes what appear to us to be arbitrary and unreasonable distinctions. That in large measure is because law is only supplementary."

"How do you mean--supplementary?" queried Tutt.

"Why," answered his partner, "as James C. Carter pointed out, ninety-nine per cent of all law is unwritten. What keeps most people straight is not criminal statutes but their own sense of decency, conscience or whatever you may choose to call it. Doubtless you recall the famous saying of Diogenes Laertius: 'There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the unwritten law.' I see that, of course you do! As I was saying only the other day, infractions of good taste and of manners, civil wrongs, sins, crimes--are in essence one and the same, differing only in degree. Thus the man who goes out to dinner without a collar violates the laws of social usage; if he takes all his clothes off and walks the streets he commits a crime. In a measure it simply depends on how many clothes he has on what grade of offense he commits. From that point of view the man who is not a gentleman is in a sense a criminal. But the law can't make a man a gentleman."

"I should say not!" murmured Miss Wiggin.

"Well," continued Mr. Tutt, "we have various ways of dealing with these outlaws. The man who violates our ideas of good taste or good manners is sent to Coventry; the man who does you a wrong is mulcted in damages; the sinner is held under the town pump and ridden out of town on a rail, or the church takes a hand and threatens him with the hereafter; but if he crosses a certain line we arrest him and lock him up--either from public spirit or for our own private ends."

"Hear! Hear!" cried Tutt admiringly.

"Fundamentally there is only an arbitrary distinction between wrongs, sins and crimes. The meanest and most detestable of men, beside whom an honest burglar is a sympathetic human being, may yet never violate a criminal statute."

"That's so!" said Tutt. "Take Badger, for instance."

"How often we defend cases," ruminated his partner, "where the complainant is just as bad as the prisoner at the bar--if not worse."

"And of course," added Tutt, "you must admit there are a lot of criminals who are criminals from perfectly good motives. Take the man, for instance, who thrashes a bystander who insults his wife--the man's wife, I mean, naturally."

"Only in those cases where we elect to take the law into our own hands we ought to be willing to accept the consequences like gentlemen and sportsmen," commented the senior partner.

"This is all very interesting, no doubt," remarked Miss Wiggin, "but as a matter of general information I should like to know why the criminal law doesn't punish the sinners--as well as the criminals."

"I guess one reason," replied Tutt, "is that people don't wish to be kept from sinning."

"Thou hast spoken!" agreed Mr. Tutt. "And another reason is that the criminal law was not originally devised for the purpose of eradicating sin--which, after all, is the state into which it is said man was born--but was only intended to prevent certain kinds of physical violence and lawlessness--murder, highway robbery, assault, and so on. The church was supposed to take care of sin, and there was an elaborate system of ecclesiastical courts. In point of fact, though there is a great deal of misconception on the subject, the criminal law does not deal with sin as sin at all, or even with wrongs merely as wrongs. It has a precise and limited purpose--namely, to prevent certain kinds of acts and to compel the performance of other acts.