Mr. Crewe's Career — Complete. Winston Churchill

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СКАЧАТЬ this: he had gone to Bradford to hear the case, for he had been a dear friend of Sarah Austen. Two days later Hilary Vane saw the professor on his little porch, and lingered. Mr. Brewer suspected why, led carefully up to the subject, and not being discouraged—except by numerous grunts—gave the father an account of the proceedings by no means unfavourable to the son. Some people like paregoric; the Honourable Hilary took his without undue squirming, with no visible effects to Austen.

      Life in the office continued, with one or two exceptions, the even tenor of its way. Apparently, so far as the Honourable Hilary was concerned, his son had never been to Bradford. But the Honourable Brush Bascom, when he came on mysterious business to call on the chief counsel, no longer sat on Austen's table; this was true of other feudal lords and retainers: of Mr. Nat Billings, who, by the way, did not file his draft after all. Not that Mr. Billings wasn't polite, but he indulged no longer in slow winks at the expense of the honourable Railroad Commission.

      Perhaps the most curious result of the Meader case to be remarked in passing, was upon Mr. Hamilton Tooting. Austen, except when he fled to the hills, was usually the last to leave the office, Mr. Tooting often the first. But one evening Mr. Tooting waited until the force had gone, and entered Austen's room with his hand outstretched.

      “Put her there, Aust,” he said.

      Austen put her there.

      “I've been exercisin' my thinker some the last few months,” observed Mr. Tooting, seating himself on the desk.

      “Aren't you afraid of nervous prostration, Ham?”

      “Say,” exclaimed Mr. Tooting, with a vexed laugh, “why are you always jollying me? You ain't any older than I am.”

      “I'm not as old, Ham. I don't begin to have your knowledge of the world.”

      “Come off,” said Mr. Tooting, who didn't know exactly how to take this compliment. “I came in here to have a serious talk. I've been thinking it over, and I don't know but what you did right.”

      “Well, Ham, if you don't know, I don't know how I am to convince you.”

      “Hold on. Don't go twistin' around that way—you make me dizzy.” He lowered his voice confidentially, although there was no one within five walls of them. “I know the difference between a gold brick and a government bond, anyhow. I believe bucking the railroad's going to pay in a year or so. I got on to it as soon as you did, I guess, but when a feller's worn the collar as long as I have and has to live, it ain't easy to cut loose—you understand.”

      “I understand,” answered Austen, gravely.

      “I thought I'd let you know I didn't take any too much trouble with Meader last summer to get the old bird to accept a compromise.”

      “That was good of you, Ham.”

      “I knew what you was up to,” said Mr. Tooting, giving Austen a friendly poke with his cigar.

      “You showed your usual acumen, Mr. Tooting,” said Austen, as he rose to put on his coat. Mr. Tooting regarded him uneasily.

      “You're a deep one, Aust,” he declared; “some day you and, me must get together.”

      Mr. Billings' desire for ultimate justice not being any stronger than Austen suspected, in due time Mr. Meader got his money. His counsel would have none of it—a decision not at all practical, and on the whole disappointing. There was, to be sure, an influx into Austen's office of people who had been run over in the past, and it was Austen's unhappy duty to point out to these that they had signed (at the request of various Mr. Tootings) little slips of paper which are technically known as releases. But the first hint of a really material advantage to be derived from his case against the railroad came from a wholly unexpected source, in the shape of a letter in the mail one August morning.

      “DEAR SIR: Having remarked with some interest the verdict for a

       client of yours against the United Northeastern Railroads, I wish

       you would call and see me at your earliest convenience.

       “Yours truly,

       “HUMPHREY CREWE.”

      Although his curiosity was aroused, Austen was of two minds whether to answer this summons, the truth being that Mr. Crewe had not made, on the occasions on which they had had intercourse, the most favourable of impressions. However, it is not for the struggling lawyer to scorn any honourable brief, especially from a gentleman of stocks and bonds and varied interests like Mr. Crewe, with whom contentions of magnitude are inevitably associated. As he spun along behind Pepper on the Leith road that climbed Willow Brook on the afternoon he had made the appointment, Austen smiled to himself over his anticipations, and yet—being human-let his fancy play.

      The broad acres of Wedderburn stretched across many highways, but the manor-house (as it had been called) stood on an eminence whence one could look for miles down the Yale of the Blue. It had once been a farmhouse, but gradually the tail had begun to wag the dog, and the farmhouse became, like the original stone out of which the Irishman made the soup, difficult to find. Once the edifice had been on the road, but the road had long ago been removed to a respectful distance, and Austen entered between two massive pillars built of granite blocks on a musical gravel drive.

      Humphrey Crewe was on the porch, his hands in his pockets, as Austen drove up.

      “Hello,” he said, in a voice probably meant to be hospitable, but which had a peremptory ring, “don't stand on ceremony. Hitch your beast and come along in.”

      Having, as it were, superintended the securing of Pepper, Mr. Crewe led the way through the house to the study, pausing once or twice to point out to Austen a carved ivory elephant procured at great expense in China, and a piece of tapestry equally difficult of purchase. The study itself was no mere lounging place of a man of pleasure, but sober and formidable books were scattered through the cases: “Turner's Evolution of the Railroad,” “Graham's Practical Forestry,” “Eldridge's Finance”; while whole shelves of modern husbandry proclaimed that Mr. Humphrey Crewe was no amateur farmer. There was likewise a shelf devoted to road building, several to knotty-looking pamphlets, and half a wall of neatly labelled pigeonholes. For decoration, there was an oar garnished with a ribbon, and several groups of college undergraduates, mostly either in puffed ties or scanty attire, and always prominent in these groups, and always unmistakable, was Mr. Humphrey Crewe himself.

      Mr. Crewe was silent awhile, that this formidable array of things might make the proper impression upon his visitor.

      “It was lucky you came to-day, Vane,” he said at length. “I am due in New York to-morrow for a directors' meeting, and I have a conference in Chicago with a board of trustees of which I am a member on the third. Looking at my array of pamphlets, eh? I've been years in collecting them—ever since I left college. Those on railroads ought especially to interest you—I'm somewhat of a railroad man myself.”

      “I didn't know that,” said Austen.

      “Had two or three blocks of stock in subsidiary lines that had to be looked after. It was a nuisance at first,” said Mr. Crewe, “but I didn't shirk it. I made up my mind I'd get to the bottom of the railroad problem, and I did. It's no use doing a thing at all unless you do it well.” Mr. Crewe, his hands still in his pockets, faced Austen smilingly. “Now I'll bet you didn't know I was a railroad man until you came in here. To tell the truth, it was about СКАЧАТЬ