Part 6 (2/2)
For the first two years s.h.a.garach's face showed the desperation of his fortunes. His own people shunned him as a seceder from the synagogue. To the public he was still unknown. But one day a trivial case had matched him against a certain eminent pleader, a Goliath in stature and in skill. The end of the day's tourney witnessed his bulk prostrated before the undersized scion of the house of David. From that hour the dimensions of his fame had grown apace. Critics noticed an occasional simplicity in everyday matters, just as a gifted foreigner who has become eloquent in our tongue may have to ask some commonplace native for a word now and then. Rivals questioned his technical learning, who had little else to boast. Yet s.h.a.garach's knowledge, practical or legal, was always found adequate to his cause. Whether he was pedantically profound in the law or not might be an open question. But all who knew him at all knew him for a t.i.tan.
The man appeared to be lonely by nature. Excepting the young a.s.sistant, Aronson, he a.s.sociated no colleague with him, carrying all the details of his growing volume of business in his own capacious mind. Other men made memoranda. s.h.a.garach remembered. What he might be in himself none knew; yet ”all things to all men” was a motto he spurned. s.h.a.garach was s.h.a.garach to judge or scullion, everywhere masterful, unruffled, mysterious. Were it not for the luminous eyes he might be taken for an abstract thinker. These orbs supplied the magnetism to rivet crowds and suggested a seer of deep soul-secrets (unknown even to their possessor), dormant, perhaps subdued, but not annihilated, under the exterior equipment of the criminal lawyer.
s.h.a.garach often colloqued with himself as he was doing now. In his trials, though he neither badgered witnesses nor wrangled with opponents, he was noted for sotto-voce comments, sometimes ironical, that seemed scarcely conscious. These mannerisms might be relics of a solitary pre-existence, in which the habit of thinking aloud had been formed.
”Was it Arnold or Mungovan who touched the match?” He continued his pacing in silence. ”Both knew the premises, Mungovan the better of the two.”
The electric street lamp shone into his room and the footfalls of the last tenant, receding on the stairs, had long since died to silence.
”I will study Arnold,” he said, finally, b.u.t.toning his coat, as if the problem were as good as solved.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ROYSTERERS.
”Get the mail, Indigo.”
The letters made a goodly heap on the salver, but Harry Arnold sifted them over with an air of dissatisfaction. One cream-colored envelope, superscribed in a dainty hand, he laid apart. The rest he tore open and tossed into Indigo's lap, as if they were duns, invitations and other such formal matters.
”Drop a line apiece to these bores,” he said to his valet, with a yawn. Like the whole tribe of the unoccupied, he was too busy to answer letters.
”Where's Aladdin?”
”Grazing in the paddock.”
”Did you get the roses for Miss March?”
”Two dozen Marechal Neils.”
”I want some paper for a note to go with them. Mother's prompt,” he added, opening the letter he had reserved, while Indigo went on his errand. It was headed ”Hillsborough,” and ran as follows: ”Dear Harry: It is a pleasure to be in our old summer home again, especially after the trying day I spent in that courtroom. The orchards are no longer in bloom, and the pear tree in the angle (your favorite), which was just a great pyramid of snowy blossoms when we arrived last year, is now budding with fruit. These things remind me how late the season has begun this year. Do not prolong it too far, Harry, dear. I am sure, after your illness, the mere sight of the open fields would do you good. Woodlawn is suburban, but it is not real country. Besides, we are only twenty miles out and you could ride in town in an hour whenever you liked.
”Be a.s.sured you shall have the money for your club expenses as soon as I can collect it. But property has its embarra.s.sments, you know; and we may be rich in bonds and indentures, yet lack ready pennies at times, strange as it may seem to your inexperience. Do not worry, dear. In your present delicate state of health it may injure you more than I care to think. The very next time I come to town you shall have what you desire. But I make my own terms. You must be a good boy and come to Hillsborough for it. Forgive my writing so soon. I have been thinking of you, and it surely cannot displease you to hear once more how dearly you are remembered, wherever she goes, by your loving mother, ”ALICE BREWSTER ARNOLD.”
”Once more! No, nor a thousand times more!” cried Harry. ”But I wish she'd come down sooner with the cash,” he added. ”What's this? Postscript?”
”Your friends, the Marches, have taken their cottage in Lenox. Possibly this may hasten your coming more than my entreaties.”
”Jealous of Rosalie, already,” laughed Harry. ”Poor mother! What, another?”
”P. S. (Private)--It would be wise, Harry, if you should call upon your cousin. A visit from you would look well at this time.”
”A call on Rob? Gad, I never thought of that. Give me the stationery, Indigo.”
For five minutes Harry Arnold was alone, writing his prettiest note of compliment to accompany the gift of flowers to Miss Rosalie March. He had just moistened the mucilage when there came a ring at the bell.
”See if that's the fellows, Indigo. Look through the shutters.”
”It's Kennedy,” said Indigo, twisting his neck and eyes so as to get a slanting view of the callers.
”Who else?”
”Idler and Sunburst.”
”Let them up.”
”Well, Harry,” cried the first of the three bloods, extending a hand, ”what's the tempo of your song this morning?”
”Allegro, vivace, vivacissimo, Idler. Convalescing; doctor says I may go out; mother agreeable; medicine chest thrown to the dogs. Have a pill; only a few more left.”
”h.e.l.lo!” cried the fragile youth who had entered last. ”Miss Rosalie March!” He picked up the envelope which Harry had laid down. ”Sits the wind in that quarter still, Horatio?”
”The actress, Harry?” cried a second of the trio.
”What actress, you b.o.o.by? Miss March isn't an actress.”
”Nevertheless, she occasionally acts,” retorted Sunburst. His yellow beard ent.i.tled him to this alias.
”Just the opposite, then, of her brother, Tristram,” said the tall, sallow youth addressed as Idler. ”He is a sculptor, but he never sculps. Did you see his alto-relievo of a Druid's head in the Art club? Capital study. Why in the deuce doesn't he work?”
”If he did he might get his goods on the market,” said Kennedy.
”Out on you for a Philistine, a dunderhead!” cried Harry. ”Do you confound genius with salability? Idler could correct you on that point. You remember his satire on 'The Religious Significance of Umbrellas in China?' Was anything ever more daringly conceived, more wittily executed, more--but I spare the shades of Addison and Lamb. And how much did it fetch him? A paltry $15.”
Idler was the only one of these well-born good-for-naughts who ever turned his gifts to use. Sketches over the sobriquet by which he was known to his friends occasionally appeared in the lighter magazines.
”But my 'New Broom' made a clean sweep, Harry,” he protested.
”Murder,” groaned Harry. ”He had that in for us. A prepared joke is detestable. It's like bottled spring water.”
”Hang spring water!” said Idler. ”Hang water anyway!”
”Indigo,” cried Harry, jumping at the hint, ”fetch us some very weak whey from the spa. Let's have a real old high jinks of a slambang bust to celebrate my convalescence. h.e.l.lo! What's that?”
The wild wail of a bagpipe smote the air and the four boon companions rushed to the window.
”Have him in!”
”Yoho!”
”Here, Sawnie!”
”He's coming.”
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