Deft Chinese waiters slipped silently from guest to guest with bird's-nest soup, guy soo main, mon goo guy pan, shark's fin and lung har made of shreds of lobster, water chestnuts, rice and the succulent shoots of the young bamboo, while three musicians in a corner sang through their nose a syncopated dirge. “Wang-ang-ang-ang!” it rose and fell as Mr. Tutt, his neck encircled by a wreath of lilies, essayed to manipulate a pair of long black chop-sticks. “Wang-ang-ang-ang!” About him were golden limes, ginger in syrup, litchi nuts, pickled leeches.
Then he felt a touch upon his shoulder and turned to see Fong Hen, the slipper, standing beside him. It was the duty of Fong Hen to drink with each guest-more than that, to drink as much as each guest drank! He gravely offered Mr. Tutt a pony of rice brandy. It was not the fiery lava he had anticipated, but a soft, caressing nectar, fragrant as if distilled from celestial flowers of the time of Confucius. The slipper swallowed the same quantity at a gulp, bowed and passed along.
Mr. Tutt vainly tried to grasp the fact that he was in his own native city of New York. Long sleeves covered with red and purple dragons hid his arms and hands, and below the collar a smooth tight surface of silk across his breast made access to his pockets quite impossible. In one of them reposed twenty one-thousand-dollar bills-his fee for securing the acquittal of Mock Hen. Yes, he was in New York!
The monotonous wail of the instruments, the pungency of the incense, the subdued light, the humid breath of the roses carried the thoughts of Mr. Tutt far away. Before him, against the blue misty sunshine, rose the yellow temples of Peking. He could hear the faint tintinnabulation of bells. He was wandering in a garden fragrant with jasmine blossoms and adorned with ancient graven stones and carved gilt statues. The air was sweet. Mr. Tutt was very tired…
“Let him sleep!” nodded Buddha, deftly conveying to his wrinkled lips a delicate morsel of guy yemg dun. “Let him sleep! He has earned his sleep. He has saved our face!”
It was after midnight when Mr. Tutt, heavily laden with princely gifts of ivory and jade and boxes of priceless teas, emerged from the side door of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant. The sky was brilliant with stars and the sidewalks of Doyers and Pell Streets were crowded with pedestrians. Near by a lantern-bedecked rubber-neck wagon was in process of unloading its cargo of seekers after the curious and unwholesome. On either side of him walked Wong Get and Buddha. They had hardly reached the corner when five shots echoed in quick succession above the noise of the traffic and the crowd turned with one accord and rushed in the direction from which he had just come.
Mr. Tutt, startled, stopped and looked back. Courteously also stopped Wong Get and Buddha. A throng was fast gathering in front of the Shanghai and Hongkong Restaurant.
Then Murtha appeared, shouldering his way roughly through the mob. Catching sight of Mr. Tutt, he paused long enough to whisper hoarsely in the lawyer's ear: “Well, they got Mock Hen! Five bullets in him! But if they were going to, why in hell couldn't they have done it three months ago?”
Samuel and Delilah
“And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with
her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed
unto death; that he told her all his heart, and said unto
her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head;…
if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I
shall become weak and be like any other man.”
– JUDGES XVI, 16, 17.
“Have you seen '76 Fed.' anywhere, Mr. Tutt?” inquired Tutt, appearing suddenly in the doorway of his partner's office.
Mr. Tutt looked up from Page 364 of the opinion he was perusing in “The United States vs. One Hundred and Thirty-two Packages of Spirituous Liquors and Wines.”
“Got it here in front of me,” he answered shortly. “What do you want it for?”
Tutt looked over his shoulder.
“That's a grand name for a case, isn't it? 'Packages of Wines!'“ he chuckled. “I made a note once of a matter entitled 'United States vs. Forty-three Cases of Frozen Eggs'; and of another called 'United States vs. One Feather Mattress and One Hundred and Fifty Pounds of Butter'-along in 197 Federal Reports, if I remember correctly. And you recall that accident case we had-Bump against the Railroad?”
“You can't tell me anything about names,” remarked Mr. Tutt. “I once tried a divorce action. Fuss against Fuss; and another, Love against Love. Do you really want this book?”
“Not if you are using it,” replied Tutt. “I just wanted to show an authority to Mr. Sorg, the president of the Fat and Skinny Club. You know our application for a certificate of incorporation was denied yesterday by Justice McAlpin.”
“No, I didn't know it,” returned Mr. Tutt. “Why?”
“Here's his memorandum in the Law Journal,” answered his partner. “Read it for yourself”:
Matter of Fat and Skinny Club, Inc. This is an
application for approval of a certificate of incorporation
as a membership corporation. The stated purposes are
to promote and encourage social intercourse and good
fellowship and to advance the interests of the community.
The name selected is the Fat and Skinny Club. If this
be the most appropriate name descriptive of its membership
it is better that it remain unincorporated. Application
denied.
“Now who says the law isn't the perfection of common sense?” ruminated Mr. Tutt. “Its general principles are magnificent.”
“And yet,” mused Tutt, “only last week Judge McAlpin granted the petition of one Solomon Swackhamer to change his name to Phillips Brooks Vanderbilt. Is that right? Is that justice? Is it equity? I ask you!-when he turns down the Fat and Skinnies?”
“Oh, yes it is,” retorted Mr. Tutt. “When you consider that Mr. Swackhamer could have assumed the appellation of P.B. Vanderbilt or any other name he chose without asking the court's permission at all.”
“What!” protested Tutt incredulously.
“That's the law,” returned the senior partner. “A man can call himself what he chooses and change his name as often as he likes-so long, of course, as he doesn't do it to defraud. The mere fact that a statute likewise gives him the right to apply to the courts to accomplish the same result makes no difference.”
“Of course it might make him feel a little more comfortable about it to do it that way,” suggested Tutt. “Do you know, as long as I've practised law in this town I've always assumed that one had to get permission to change one's name.”
“You've learned something,” said Mr. Tutt suavely. “I hope you will put it to good account. Here's '76 Fed.' Take it out and console the Fat and Skinny Club with it if you can.”
Mr. Tutt surrendered the volume without apparent regret and Tutt retired to his own office and to the task of soothing the injured feelings of Mr. Sorg.
A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not affect to have any. To her neither Tutt nor Mr. Tutt was any such great shakes. Had Tutt dared to let her know of many of the schemes which he devised for the profit or safety of his clients she would have thought less of him still; in fact, she might have parted with him forever. In a sense Mrs. Tutt was an exacting woman. Though she somewhat reluctantly consented to view the hours from nine a.m. to five p.m. in her husband's day as belonging to the law, she emphatically regarded the rest of the twenty-four hours as belonging to her.