“I’m glad to know it,” continued Mrs. Warner. “That you’re a fighter, I mean. Because it will make it all the more interesting. You have to fight me now.”
Mr. Warner blinked three times before he could find his tongue.
“Fight you!” he exclaimed finally, quite as though he had been informed that he was about to charge on the German army.
“Yes. That is what I wanted to talk to you about. My dear Timmie, you are to represent the city in the Holdup Suit.”
“The city! Me! What... why—” He was staggered out of coherence.
“Exactly. The city and you. You are to handle the case for the City of Granton.”
Mr. Warner was blinking at the rate of fifty times a second.
“My dear Lora,” said he — and you may believe he was strongly agitated when he called his wife his dear Lora — “my dear Lora, I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about.”
Mrs. Warner began her explanation. “It’s very simple,” she declared. “In fact, there’s nothing more to say. As you know, I am retained for the railway company. You will represent the city. We will be opponents. It is my own idea.”
“But why?” He was still bewildered.
“Silly! Don’t you see it will put an end to all these absurd rumors about my being — what old Hamlin says?”
“Oh!” said Mr. Warner, suddenly comprehending.
“They can’t very well say we are in partnership when we are opposed to each other,” continued his wife. “It will work out beautifully. The only difficulty is to get the brief for you. But you ought to be able to manage it. Mayor Slosson is still a good friend of yours, isn’t he?”
Mr. Warner nodded.
“Then it shouldn’t be so difficult. Besides, they know very well there isn’t a chance in the world of winning, so they won’t care who handles the case. If necessary, you could offer your services without fee. You had better see the mayor in the morning.”
“But—”
“Well?”
“Would it be professionally correct?”
“Correct? How?”
“For us to take retainers in opposition.”
“Good Heavens! Why not?”
“I don’t know. I thought perhaps — I suppose it would be all right.” He hesitated for a minute, then added diffidently, “Naturally, you know, I don’t like to take a hopeless case.”
“I know. I thought of that. But nobody expects you to win. Every one knows you can’t win.”
“True.” The little man walked across to a window and stood looking out on the night. This for perhaps ten seconds; then he returned to the chair and sat down, not on the arm, but in the seat. He looked up at his wife and found her regarding him expectantly; he kept his eyes steadfast, noting her fresh velvety skin, her pretty parted lips, her mass of glorious brown hair. Then he looked away, blinked and sighed.
“I’ll see Mayor Slosson in the morning,” he said.
Lora sprang up from the divan, ran to his chair and threw her arms about his neck. “You’re a dear, Timmie!” she cried.
When he got to his room ten minutes later his face was still flushed with the remembrance of her kiss.
III
At ten o’clock the following morning Timothy D. Warner called on Mayor Slosson at the city hall, and was shown at once into the private office.
Mayor Slosson, a square-jawed, athletic-looking man of thirty-two or-three, had been carried into office by a wave of liberal sentiment that had swept the city at the last election.
He had been a factory hand, had risen to the position of superintendent, and some five years before had started a factory of his own with capital borrowed from one Timothy D. Warner. He had paid back the money, but it will be seen that he considered himself still in debt.
“Pretty busy?” inquired Mr. Warner, dropping into a chair. “There’s a crowd outside. I supposed I’d have to wait.”
“Beggars, most of ’em,” commented the mayor. “I’m never too busy to see you, Mr. Warner. Thank God, I haven’t reached the point yet where I forget my friends. I’ve discovered that most people have. How’s everything?”
Mr. Warner replied in a somewhat doubtful tone that everything was all right. Then, because what he had to say tasted badly in his mouth, he got it out at once, without preamble.
“Jim, I want to represent the city in the Holdup Suit.”
The mayor whistled in mild surprise; but before he had time to put it into words his visitor continued:
“I know it’s a great deal to ask, and I’d rather bite my tongue off. But... that is... I have a personal reason. I ask it as a favor. It isn’t as though you were endangering your case, because everyone says you haven’t any.”
Some inward thought had brought a grin to the mayor’s face.
“Isn’t Mrs. Warner representing Nelson?” he asked curiously.
The other replied simply: “Yes.”
“Then — would it be professional?”
“I think so. We are not partners, you know.”
There was a pause, while the mayor gazed thoughtfully at a paperweight on his desk.
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t have it,” he said finally. “Gray, the city attorney, could appoint you as temporary assistant and give you the assignment. He’d be glad of the chance, for I’m afraid they’re right when they say we haven’t a case. It’s a pity, too. The people are entitled to that money and they ought to have it. I know they say we are trying to make political capital, and maybe we are, but it’s a just claim for all that.”
“Then do you think — shall I see Gray?”
“Yes. Wait a minute.” The mayor looked at his watch. “He ought to be in now. Come on — we’ll go round there together.”
Thus it happened that at two o’clock that afternoon Mr. Warner entered his office on Main Street with a huge bundle of papers under his arm and a worried frown on his brow. The papers he had got from City Attorney Gray, who had evidently been glad to get rid of them; the frown came from a certain newfound perplexity that was destined to give him many uncomfortable hours in the immediate future.
Mr. Warner’s trained legal mind had shown him at a glance that Mayor Slosson was indisputably correct in his contention that the city’s case was a just one. Also, that it was as hopeless as it was just. But the curious thing was that, finding himself thus accidentally the leader of a lost cause, he felt suddenly freed from his immemorial timidity and diffidence. Instead, he felt a new instinct stirring within him — a glorious, breathtaking instinct — the instinct to fight.
He sat down at his desk, untied the bundle of papers, and read over the clause in the franchise that was the center of dispute.
ARTICLE 14 — It is further agreed that whenever the net profits of the party of the first part for any fiscal year, beginning on the first day of July and ending on the thirtieth day of June following, shall be shown to be in excess of eight per centum of the amount of capital stock as stated in the papers of incorporation, the party of the second part shall receive an amount not less than fifty per centum of such excess, to be paid within sixty days from the expiration of the fiscal year in which such excess was realized. (Net profits defined below.) Furthermore, that the party of the second part, through its representatives, shall at all times have access to the books, papers and accounts of the party of the first part, in order to determine such excess.
“Not a chance,” Mr. Warner muttered to himself. “We can’t win. It’s as simple as A B C. That part of the railway which runs to Vinewood Park, being without the city limits, is not covered by the franchise, and the city can’t collect a cent on its profits. And yet it’s the city people that use it and they’re certainly entitled to their share. The man that signed this franchise for the city was either a crook or a brainless fool!”