The Apple of Discord. Earle Ashley Walcott

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СКАЧАТЬ you can be told that we are at home on Thursdays. There–I hear uncle showing that comical General Wilson out the door, so I'll be getting my book and go. It was uncle you came to see, I believe."

      "It was Mr. Kendrick I called for, but–"

      "You needn't go on," interrupted Miss Kendrick calmly. "I suppose you think it is only a white one, but I'd rather not hear it. Now if you wouldn't mind reaching that fourth book from the end of the second row from the top, you'll save me from the mortification of climbing on a chair."

      "This one?"

      "Yes, please," she said. "Thank you. Good night. I really don't see why I've talked so much."

      "It was very good of you," I protested. "Good night."

      The swish of her skirts had hardly died away when the opposite door–the one by which I had entered–opened, and Wharton Kendrick walked in.

      "Come this way, Wilson. I can put my hand on the book in one second."

      "You can't find your citation, Kendrick–it isn't there," said a short, stout, red-faced man, with short yellow-gray side-whiskers, as he bustled in the wake of my client. "I tell you you can't find it. I know the whole thing from cover to cover. Just give me the first line of any page and I'll repeat it right to the bottom. I never have to read a thing more than once and I can carry it on the tip of my tongue for years afterward. Lord bless us, whom have we here?"

      "Oh, Hampden," said Kendrick. "I didn't see you. General Wilson, allow me to introduce you." And the magnate gave me a kind word of identification.

      "A lawyer?" exclaimed General Wilson, his red face beaming in the frame of his yellow-gray side-whiskers. "Young man, you are entering on the greatest and noblest profession that the human mind has devised. You are following the most elevated and grandest principles that the wit of mankind is capable of evolving from the truths of the ages. I am a humble follower of the profession myself, and am proud to take you by the hand."

      He was not proud enough to make the most of the honor, for he gave but a perfunctory grasp as I made some appropriate reply.

      "I've been in the profession more decades than I like to tell about," said General Wilson, with a lofty wave of the hand, "but I've been trying to get out of it for the last five years. Perhaps you can't appreciate that, Hampden. Here you're trying to get into it, and I dare say finding it devilish hard; but if you're like me you'll be trying to get out of it some day and finding it a damned sight harder yet."

      "I don't doubt it," said I with pious mendacity.

      "Here's the book," said Kendrick. But General Wilson waved him aside.

      "It's wonderful the way business sticks to a man. I've got clients who just won't be discharged. I thought a year ago that I was going to see the last of them, but no sooner did I mention it than they were all up in arms. 'We can't spare you,' they said. 'I must take a rest,' I told them. 'Take it at our expense,' they said. And the Ohio Midland gave me a special car and paid the expenses of a trip around the country, and the Pennsylvania Southern gave me a twenty-thousand-dollar check to settle for a vacation in Europe, and the Rockland and Western made me the present of a country place where I could go and have quiet; and after that what could I do?"

      "They must have been irresistible," I admitted.

      "Just so; but even then I tried to beg off. I told 'em I had enough money. It wasn't money I wanted. It was rest–freedom from worry of business, the grinding care of law cases–that I was after. But it wouldn't do. The Ohio Midland said, 'Wilson, if you can't be with us, you mustn't be against us. We know you'll be back again. Take twenty thousand a year as a retainer and count yourself as one of us yet. We shouldn't be easy else.' But the Pennsylvania Southern and the Rockland and Western wouldn't allow even that. They said, 'Wilson, we can't do without you. We'll give you all the help you want, but we must have you at the head. Name your own figures. It isn't a question of money. You must be our leading counsel, even if you don't look in on us more than once a quarter.' I couldn't shake 'em off, so, as I've been saying to Kendrick, I'm like to die in harness, though I'd give anything to be free and enjoy life as you young fellows do."

      "Just so," said Kendrick cheerily; "but you're way out of the running about that Mosely matter. Here's the book, and here's the page, and it was just as I was telling you."

      "Ahem!" growled General Wilson, turning redder than ever and taking the book gingerly. "Oh, this is the thing you were talking about, is it? Of course, of course, you were quite right–Mosely, of course. I don't need to read a word of it. I thought you were talking about that Moberly case. Mosely, of course. Well, I'll send you those papers as soon as I get to New York. I must be off now. I've got to see Governor Stanford to-night, and he's one of your early-to-bed men; so good night."

      "You'll call in on me within the week, then?" said Kendrick, taking him to the door.

      "Oh, I shall see you in two days. We must press this business to an issue. They are waiting for me in New York, and I can't waste much time in small affairs like this. Well, good night, Kendrick, God bless you! There ought to be more men like you. Good night." And the outer door closed behind him.

      Kendrick suppressed a burst of laughter with a muscular effort that appeared to threaten apoplexy.

      "The old humbug!" he gasped. "Hampden, you've seen the most picturesque liar that ever struck the Golden Gate. He is a regular Roman candle of romances."

      "Is he a fraud? Is it all a case of imagination run wild?"

      "No, not altogether, I should say. Half of it seems to be the truth, though which half to believe I'm blest if I can make out. He brings good letters."

      "From New York?"

      "Yes; and Chicago, too. He came out two weeks ago to work up a land deal. Represents a million dollars in a syndicate, though I fancy he's not so big a part of it as he makes out. He's full of these tall stories, though they don't all of them hang together well. It's fun to listen to him, though. I couldn't help taking him down about that Mosely affair. He was so cock-sure of knowing everything that I couldn't resist the temptation."

      "You did give his vanity a singe."

      "It wasn't the politic thing to do with a million-dollar trade hanging in the balance, but I reckon he's got enough of his feathers left to carry him through the deal."

      Wharton Kendrick leaned back in his chair, and has face glowed in amusement.

      Then on a sudden he straightened up, all gravity.

      "Did you bring any news?" he asked.

      "I have a present of an overcoat," I answered. And I gave him the story of the adventure of the night.

      "That was a rash play of yours," he said gravely. "Don't do it again. It wasn't necessary."

      "Are you certain that Bolton is the only man who has an interest in setting a watch on you?" I inquired.

      "Why, what have you found?" asked Kendrick, a little startled.

      "I haven't found anything but an idea–and that," I said, handing him a bit of paper.

      "What's this?" asked Kendrick, putting on his eye-glasses. "Your wash bill? China lottery? or what?"

      "That's the thing that has puzzled me. You see, there's quite a bit of Chinese writing on it."

      "Well, what of it?"

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