I want you to size up the catastrophe -- abstractly -- you understand? I'm Mr.Nobody; and I've got a story to tell you.Then you say what's what.Do you get my wireless?""You want to state a hypothetical case?" suggested Lawyer Gooch.
"That's the word I was after.'Apothecary' was the best shot I could make at it in my mind.The hypo-thetical goes.I'll state the case.Suppose there's a woman -- a deuced fine-looking woman -- who has run away from her husband and home? She's badly mashed on another man who went to her town to work up some real estate business.Now, we may as well call this woman's husband Thomas R.Billings, for that's his name.I'm giving you straight tips on the cognomens.
The Lothario chap is Henry K.Jessup.The Billingses lived in a little town called Susanville -- a good many miles from here.Now, Jessup leaves Susanville two weeks ago.The next day Mrs.Billings follows him.
She's dead gone on this man Jessup; you can bet your law library on that."Lawyer Gooch's client said this with such unctuous satisfaction that even the callous lawyer experienced a slight ripple of repulsion.He now saw clearly in his fatuous visitor the conceit of the lady-killer, the egoistic complacency of the successful trifler.
"Now," continued the visitor, "suppose this Mrs.
Billings wasn't happy at home? We'll say she and her husband didn't gee worth a cent.They've got incom-patibility to burn.The things she likes, Billings wouldn't have as a gift with trading-stamps.It's Tabby and Rover with them all the time.She's an educated woman in science and culture, and she reads things out loud at meetings.Billings is not on.He don't appreciate pro-gress and obelisks and ethics, and things of that sort.Old Billings is simply a blink when it comes to such things.
The lady is out and out above his class.Now, lawyer, don't it look like a fair equalization of rights and wrongs that a woman like that should be allowed to throw down Billings and take the man that can appreciate her?
"Incompatibility," said Lawyer Gooch, "is undoubt-edly the source of much marital discord and unhappiness.
Where it is positively proved, divorce would seem to be the equitable remedy.Are you -- excuse me -- is this man Jessup one to whom the lady may safely trust her future?""Oh, you can bet on Jessup," said the client, with a confident wag of his head."Jessup's all right.He'll do the square thing.Why, he left Susanville just to keep pwple from talking about Mrs.Billings.But she fol-lowed him up, and now, of course, he'll stick to her.
When she gets a divorce, all legal and proper, Jessup the proper thing.""And now," said Lawyer Gooch, "continuing the hypo-if you prefer, and supposing that my services should ired in the case, what -- "The client rose impulsively to his feet.
"Oh, dang the hypothetical business," he exclaimed, impatiently."Let's let her drop, and get down to straight talk.You ought to know who I am by this time.
I want that woman to have her divorce.I'll pay for it.The day you set Mrs.Billings free I'll pay you five hundred dollars."Lawyer Gooch's client banged his fist upon the table to punctuate his generosity.
"If that is the case -- " began the lawyer.
"Lady to see you, sir," bawled Archibald, bouncing in from his anteroom.He had orders to always announce immediately any client that might come.There was no sense in turning business away.
Lawyer Gooch took client number one by the arm and led him suavely into one of the adjoining rooms."Favour me by remaining here a few minutes, sir," said he."Iwill return and resume our consultation with the least possible delay.I am rather expecting a visit from a very wealthy old lady in connection with a will.I will not keep you waiting long."The breezy gentleman seated himself with obliging acquiescence, aud took up a magazine.The lawyer returned to the middle office, carefully closing behind him the connecting door.
"Show the lady in, Archibald," he said to the office boy, who was awaiting the order.
A tall lady, of commanding presence and sternly hand-some, entered the room.She wore robes -- robes; not clothes -- ample and fluent.In her eye could be per-ceived the lambent flame of genius and soul.In her hand was a green bag of the capacity of a bushel, and an umbrella that also seemed to wear a robe, ample and fluent.She accepted a chair.
"Are you Mr.Phineas C.Gooch, the lawyer?" she asked, in formal and unconciliatory tones.
"I am," answered Lawyer Gooch, without circum-locution.He never circumlocuted when dealing with a woman.Women circumlocute.Time is wasted when both sides in debate employ the same tactics.
"As a lawyer, sir," began the lady, "you may have acquired some knowledge of the human heart.Do you believe that the pusillanimous and petty conventions of our artificial social life should stand as an obstacle in the way of a noble and affectionate heart when it finds its true mate among the miserable and worthless wretches in the world that are called men?""Madam," said Lawyer Gooch, in the tone that he used in curbing his female clients, "this is an office for conducting the practice of law.I am a lawyer, not a philosopher, nor the editor of an 'Answers to the Lovelorn' column of a newspaper.I have other clients waiting.I will ask you kindly to come to the point.""Well, you needn't get so stiff around the gills about it," said the lady, with a snap of her luminous eves and a startling gyration of her umbrella."Business is what I've come for.I want your opinion in the matter of a suit for divorce, as the vulgar would call it, but which is really only the readjustment of the false and ignoble con-ditions that the short-sihhted laws of man have interposed between a loving --""I beg your pardon, madam," interrupted Lawyer Gooch, with some impatience, "for reminding you again that this is a law office.Perhaps Mrs.Wilcox -- ""Mrs.Wilcox is all right," cut in the lady, with a hint of asperity."And so are Tolstoi, and Mrs.Gertrude Atherton, and Omar Khayyam, and Mr.Edward Bok.
