"I will call her in at once; and our united pleadings -- "Lawyer Gooch paused, for client number three had leaped from his chair as if propelled by steel springs, and clutched his satchel.
"What the devil," he exclaimed, harshly, "do vou mean? That woman in there! I thought I shook her off forty miles back."He ran to the open window, looked out below, and threw one leg over the sill.
"Stop!" cried Lawyer Gooch, in amazement."What would you do? Come, Mr.Billings, and face your erring but innocent wife.Our combined entreaties cannot fail to -- ""Billings!" shouted the now thoroughly moved client.
"I'll Billings you, you old idiot!"
Turning, he hurled his satchel with fury at the lawyer's head.It struck that astounded peacemaker between the eyes, causing him to stagger backward a pace or two.
When Lawyer Gooch recovered his wits he saw that his client had disappeared.Rushing to the window, he leaned out, and saw the recreant gathering himself up from the top of a shed upon which he had dropped from the second-story window.Without stopping to collect his hat he then plunged downward the remaining ten feet to the alley, up which he flew with prodigious celerity until the surrounding building swallowed him up from view.
Lawyer Gooch passed his hand tremblingly across his brow.It was a habitual act with him, serving to clear his thoughts.Perhaps also it now seemed to soothe the spot where a very hard alligator-hide satchel had struck.
The satchel lay upon the floor, wide open, with its con-tents spilled about.Mechanically, Lawyer Gooch stooped to gather up the articles.The first was a collar; and the omniscient eye of the man of law perceived, wonder-ingly, the initials H.K.J.marked upon it.Then came a comb, a brush, a folded map, and a piece of soap.
lastly, a handful of old business letters, addressed --every one of them -- to "Henry K.Jessup, Esq."Lawyer Gooch closed the satchel, and set it upon the table.He hesitated for a moment, and then put on his hat and walked into the office boy's anteroom.
"Archibald," he said mildly, as he opened the hall door, "I am going around to the Supreme Court rooms.In five minutes you may step into the inner office, and inform the lady who is waiting there that" -- here Lawyer Gooch made use of the vernacular -- "that there's nothing doing."CALLOWAY'S CODE
The New York Enterprise sent H.B.Calloway as special correspondent to the Russo-Japanese-Portsmouth war.
For two months Calloway hung about Yokohama and Tokio, shaking dice with the other correspondents for drinks of 'rickshaws -- oh, no, that's something to ride in; anyhow, he wasn't earning the salary that his paper was paying him.But that was not Calloway's fault.The little brown men who held the strings of Fate between their fingers were not ready for the readers of the Enterprise to season their breakfast bacon and eggs with the battles of the descendants of the gods.
But soon the column of correspondents that were to go out with the First Army tightened their field-glass belts and went down to the Yalu with Kuroki.Calloway was one of these.
Now, this is no history of the battle of the Yalu River.
That has been told in detail by the correspondents who gazed at the shrapnel smoke rings from a distance of three miles.But, for justice's sake, let it be understood that the Japanese commander prohibited a nearer view.
Calloway's feat was accomplished before the battle.
What he did was to furnish the Enterprise with the biggest beat of the war.That paper published exclu-sively and in detail the news of the attack on the lines of the Russian General on the same day that it was made.No other paper printed a word about it for two days afterward, except a London paper, whose account was absolutely incorrect and untrue.
Calloway did this in face of the fact that General Kuroki was making, his moves and living his plans with the pro-foundest secrecy, as far as the world outside his camps was concerned.The correspondents were forbidden to send out any news whatever of his plans; and every message that was allowed on the wires was censored -- with rigid severity.
The correspondent for the London paper handed in a cablegram describing, Kuroki's plans; but as it was wrong from beginning to end the censor grinned and let it go through.
So, there they were -- Kuroki on one side of the Yalu with forty-two thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, and one hundred and twenty-four guns.On the other side, Zassulitch waited for him with only twenty-three thousand men, and with a long stretch of river to guard.
And Calloway had got hold of some important inside information that he knew would bring the Enterprise staff around a cablegram as thick as flies around a Park Row lemonade stand.If he could only get that message past the censor -- the new censor who had arrived and taken his post that day!
Calloway did the obviously proper thing.He lit his pipe and sat down on a gun carriage to think it over.And there we must leave him; for the rest of the story belongs to Vesey, a sixteen-dollar-a-week reporter on the Enterprise.
Calloway's cablegram was handed to the managing editor at four o'clock in the afternoon.He read it three times; and then drew a pocket mirror from a pigeon-hole in his desk, and looked at his reflection carefully.Then he went over to the desk of Boyd, his assistant (he usually called Boyd when he wanted him), and laid the cablegram before him.
"It's from Calloway," he said."See what you make of it."The message was dated at Wi-ju, and these were the words of it:
Foregone preconcerted rash witching goes muffled rumour mine dark silent unfortunate richmond existing great hotly brute select mooted parlous beggars ye angel incontrovertible.
Boyd read it twice.
"It's either a cipher or a sunstroke," said he.
"Ever hear of anything like a code in the office -- a secret code?" asked the m.e., who had held his desk for only two years.Managing editors come and go.
