A Far Country, Book 1

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In the midst of our labours he asked me to call up the attorney for the
Railroad. Mr. Gorse was still at his office.

"Hello! Is that you, Miller?" Mr. Watling said. "This is Wading. When can
I see you for a few minutes this evening? Yes, I am leaving for
Washington at nine thirty. Eight o'clock. All right, I'll be there."

It was almost eight before he got the draft finished to his satisfaction,
and I had picked it out on the typewriter. As I handed it to him, my
chief held it a moment, gazing at me with an odd smile.

"You seem to have acquired a good deal of useful knowledge, here and
there, Hugh," he observed.

"I've tried to keep my eyes open, Mr. Watling," I said.

"Well," he said, "there are a great many things a young man practising
law in these days has to learn for himself. And if I hadn't given you
credit for some cleverness, I shouldn't have wanted you here. There's
only one way to look at--at these matters we have been discussing, my
boy, that's the common-sense way, and if a man doesn't get that point of
view by himself, nobody can teach it to him. I needn't enlarge upon it"

"No, sir," I said.

He smiled again, but immediately became serious.

"If Mr. Gorse should approve of this bill, I'm going to send you down to
the capital--to-night. Can you go?"

I nodded.

"I want you to look out for the bill in the legislature. Of course there
won't be much to do, except to stand by, but you will get a better idea
of what goes on down there."

I thanked him, and told him I would do my best.

"I'm sure of that," he replied. "Now it's time to go to see Gorse."

The legal department of the Railroad occupied an entire floor of the Corn
Bank building. I had often been there on various errands, having on
occasions delivered sealed envelopes to Mr. Gorse himself, approaching
him in the ordinary way through a series of offices. But now, following
Mr. Watling through the dimly lighted corridor, we came to a door on
which no name was painted, and which was presently opened by a
stenographer. There was in the proceeding a touch of mystery that revived
keenly my boyish love for romance; brought back the days when I had been,
in turn, Captain Kidd and Ali Baba.

I have never realized more strongly than in that moment the psychological
force of prestige. Little by little, for five years, an estimate of the
extent of Miller Gorse's power had been coming home to me, and his
features stood in my mind for his particular kind of power. He was a
tremendous worker, and often remained in his office until ten and eleven
at night. He dismissed the stenographer by the wave of a hand which
seemed to thrust her bodily out of the room.

"Hello, Miller," said Mr. Watling.

"Hello, Theodore," replied Mr. Gorse.

"This is Paret, of my office."

"I know," said Mr. Gorse, and nodded toward me. I was impressed by the
felicity with which a cartoonist of the Pilot had once caricatured him by
the use of curved lines. The circle of the heavy eyebrows ended at the
wide nostrils; the mouth was a crescent, but bowed downwards; the heavy
shoulders were rounded. Indeed, the only straight line to be discerned
about him was that of his hair, black as bitumen, banged across his
forehead; even his polished porphyry eyes were constructed on some
curvilinear principle, and never seemed to focus. It might be said of Mr.
Gorse that he had an overwhelming impersonality. One could never be quite
sure that one's words reached the mark.

In spite of the intimacy which I knew existed between them, in my
presence at least Mr. Gorse's manner was little different with Mr.
Watling than it was with other men. Mr. Wading did not seem to mind. He
pulled up a chair close to the desk and began, without any preliminaries,
to explain his errand.

"It's about the Ribblevale affair," he said. "You know we have a suit."

Gorse nodded.

"We've got to get at the books, Miller,--that's all there is to it. I
told you so the other day. Well, we've found out a way, I think."

He thrust his hand in his pocket, while the railroad attorney remained
impassive, and drew out the draft of the bill. Mr. Gorse read it, then
read it over again, and laid it down in front of him.

"Well," he said.

"I want to put that through both houses and have the governor's signature
to it by the end of the week."

"It seems a little raw, at first sight, Theodore," said Mr. Gorse, with
the suspicion of a smile.

My chief laughed a little.

"It's not half so raw as some things I might mention, that went through
like greased lightning," he replied. "What can they do? I believe it will
hold water. Tallant's, and most of the other newspapers in the state,
won't print a line about it, and only Socialists and Populists read the
Pilot. They're disgruntled anyway. The point is, there's no other way out
for us. Just think a moment, bearing in mind what I've told you about the
case, and you'll see it."

Mr. Gorse took up the paper again, and read the draft over.

"You know as well as I do, Miller, how dangerous it is to leave this
Ribblevale business at loose ends. The Carlisle steel people and the Lake
Shore road are after the Ribblevale Company, and we can't afford to run
any risk of their getting it. It's logically a part of the Boyne
interests, as Scherer says, and Dickinson is ready with the money for the
reorganization. If the Carlisle people and the Lake Shore get it, the
product will be shipped out by the L and G, and the Railroad will lose.
What would Barbour say?"

Mr. Barbour, as I have perhaps mentioned, was the president of the
Railroad, and had his residence in the other great city of the state. He
was then, I knew, in the West.

"We've got to act now," insisted Mr. Watling. "That's open and shut. If
you have any other plan, I wish you'd trot it out. If not, I want a
letter to Paul Varney and the governor. I'm going to send Paret down with
them on the night train."

It was clear to me then, in the discussion following, that Mr. Watling's
gift of persuasion, though great, was not the determining factor in Mr.
Gorse's decision. He, too, possessed boldness, though he preferred
caution. Nor did the friendship between the two enter into the
transaction. I was impressed more strongly than ever with the fact that a
lawsuit was seldom a mere private affair between two persons or
corporations, but involved a chain of relationships and nine times out of
ten that chain led up to the Railroad, which nearly always was vitally
interested in these legal contests. Half an hour of masterly presentation
of the situation was necessary before Mr. Gorse became convinced that the
introduction of the bill was the only way out for all concerned.

"Well, I guess you're right, Theodore," he said at length. Whereupon he
seized his pen and wrote off two notes with great rapidity. These he
showed to Mr. Watling, who nodded and returned them. They were folded and
sealed, and handed to me. One was addressed to Colonel Paul Varney, and
the other to the Hon. W. W. Trulease, governor of the state.

"You can trust this young man?" demanded Mr. Gorse.

"I think so," replied Mr. Watling, smiling at me. "The bill was his own
idea."

The railroad attorney wheeled about in his chair and looked at me; looked
around me, would better express it, with his indefinite, encompassing yet
inclusive glance. I had riveted his attention. And from henceforth, I
knew, I should enter into his calculations. He had made for me a
compartment in his mind.

"His own idea!" he repeated.

"I merely suggested it," I was putting in, when he cut me short.

"Aren't you the son of Matthew Paret?"

"Yes," I said.

He gave me a queer glance, the significance of which I left untranslated.
My excitement was too great to analyze what he meant by this mention of
my father....

When we reached the sidewalk my chief gave me a few parting instructions.

"I need scarcely say, Hugh," he added, "that your presence in the capital
should not be advertised as connected with this--legislation. They will
probably attribute it to us in the end, but if you're reasonably careful,
they'll never be able to prove it. And there's no use in putting our
cards on the table at the beginning."

"No indeed, sir!" I agreed.

He took my hand and pressed it.

"Good luck," he said. "I know you'll get along all right."