The Complete Works of O. Henry

by O. Henry

  "Awfully imprudent of Williams," said Morgan, putting his feet up against the wall, "to strike a Kentucky lady. Seems to me I've heard they were scrappers."

  "Bad, bad Williams," said Reeves, pouring out more Scotch."

  The two men spoke lightly, but the consul saw and felt the tension and the carefulness in their actions and words. "Good old fellows," he said to himself; "they're both all right. Each of 'em is standing by the other like a little brick church."

  And then a dog walked into the room where they sat -- a black-and-tan hound, long-eared, lazy, confident of welcome.

  Plunkett turned his head and looked at the animal, which halted, confidently, within a few feet of his chair.

  Suddenly the sheriff, with a deep-mouthed oath, left his seat and, bestowed upon the dog a vicious and heavy kick, with his ponderous shoe.

  The hound, heartbroken, astonished, with flapping ears and incurved tail, uttered a piercing yelp of pain and surprise.

  Reeves and the consul remained in their chairs, say- ing nothing, but astonished at the unexpected show of intolerance from the easy-going-man from Chatham county.

  But Morgan, with a suddenly purpling face, leaped, to his feet and raised a threatening arm above the guest.

  "You -- brute!" he shouted, passionately; "why did you do that?"

  Quickly the amenities returned, Plunkett muttered some indistinct apology and regained his seat. Morgan with a decided effort controlled his indignation and also returned to his chair.

  And then Plunkett with the spring of a tiger, leaped around the corner of the table and snapped handcuffs on the paralyzed Morgan's wrists.

  "Hound-lover and woman-killer!" he cried; "get ready to meet your God."

  When Bridger had finished I asked him:

  "Did he get the right man?"

  "He did," said the Consul.

  "And how did he know?" I inquired, being in a kind of bewilderment.

  "When he put Morgan in the dory," answered Bridger, "the next day to take him aboard the Pajaro, this man Plunkett stopped to shake hands with me and I asked him the same question."

  "'Mr. Bridger,' said he, 'I'm a Kentuckian, and I've seen a great deal of both men and animals. And I never yet saw a man that was overfond of horses and dogs but what was cruel to women.'"

  THE HYPOTHESES OF FAILURE

  LAWYER GOOCH bestowed his undivided attention upon the engrossing arts of his profession. But one flight of fancy did he allow his mind to entertain. He was fond of likening his suite of office rooms to the bot- tom of a ship. The rooms were three in number, with a door opening from one to another. These doors could also be closed.

  "Ships," Lawyer Gooch would say, "are constructed for safety, with separate, water-tight compartments in their bottoms. If one compartment springs a leak it fills with water; but the good ship goes on unhurt. Were it not for the separating bulkheads one leak would sink the vessel. Now it often happens that while I am occu- pied with clients, other clients with conflicting interests call. With the assistance of Archibald -- an office boy with a future -- I cause the dangerous influx to be diverted into separate compartments, while I sound with my legal plummet the depth of each. If neces- sary, they may be haled into the hallway and permitted to escape by way of the stairs, which we may term the lee scuppers. Thus the good ship of business is kept afloat; whereas if the element that supports her were allowed to mingle freely in her hold we might be swamped -- ha, ha, ha!

  The law is dry. Good jokes are few. Surely it might be permitted Lawyer Gooch to mitigate the bore of briefs, the tedium of torts and the prosiness of processes with even so light a levy upon the good property of humour.

  Lawyer Gooch's practice leaned largely to the settle- ment of marital infelicities. Did matrimony languish through complications, he mediated, soothed and arbi- trated. Did it suffer from implications, he readjusted, defended and championed. Did it arrive at the extremity of duplications, he always got light sentences for his clients.

  But not always was Lawyer Gooch the keen, armed, wily belligerent, ready with his two-edged sword to lop off the shackles of Hymen. He had been known to build up instead of demolishing, to reunite instead of severing, to lead erring and foolish ones back into the fold instead of scattering the flock. Often had he by his eloquent and moving appeals sent husband and wife, weeping, back into each other's arms. Frequently he had coached childhood so successfully that, at the psychological moment (and at a given signal) the plaintive pipe of "Papa, won't you turn home adain to me and muvver?" had won the day and upheld the pillars of a tottering home.

  Unprejudiced persons admitted that Lawyer Gooch received as big fees from these revoked clients as would have been paid him had the cases been contested in court. Prejudiced ones intimated that his fees were doubled. because the penitent couples always came back later for the divorce, anyhow.

  There came a season in June when the legal ship of Lawyer Gooch (to borrow his own figure) was nearly becalmed. The divorce mill grinds slowly in June. It is the month of Cupid and Hymen.

  Lawyer Gooch, then, sat idle in the middle room of his clientless suite. A small anteroom connected -- or rather separated -- this apartment from the hallway. Here was stationed Archibald, who wrested from visitors their cards or oral nomenclature which he bore to his master while they waited.

  Suddenly, on this day, there came a great knocking at the outermost door.

  Archibald, opening it, was thrust aside as superfluous by the visitor, who without due reverence at once pene- trated to the office of Lawyer Gooch and threw himself with good-natured insolence into a comfortable chair facing that gentlemen.

  "You are Phineas C. Gooch, attorney-at-law?" said the visitor, his tone of voice and inflection making his words at once a question, an assertion and an accusation.

  Before committing himself by a reply, the lawyer esti- mated his possible client in one of his brief but shrewd and calculating glances.

  The man was of the emphatic type -- large-sized, active, bold and debonair in demeanour, vain beyond a doubt, slightly swaggering, ready and at ease. He was well- clothed, but with a shade too much ornateness. He was seeking a lawyer; but if that fact would seem to saddle him with troubles they were not patent in his beaming eye and courageous air.

  "My name is Gooch," at length the lawyer admitted. Upon pressure he would also have confessed to the Phineas C. But he did not consider it good practice to volunteer information. "I did not receive your card," he continued, by way of rebuke, "so I -- "

  "I know you didn't," remarked the visitor, coolly; "And you won't just yet. Light up?" He threw a leg over an arm of his chair, and tossed a handful of rich- hued cigars upon the table. Lawyer Gooch knew the brand. He thawed just enough to accept the invitation to smoke.

  "You are a divorce lawyer," said the cardless visitor. This time there was no interrogation in his voice. Nor did his words constitute a simple assertion. They formed a charge -- a denunciation -- as one would say to a dog: "You are a dog." Lawyer Gooch was silent under the imputation.

  "You handle," continued the visitor, "all the various ramifications of busted-up connubiality. You are a surgeon, we might saw, who extracts Cupid's darts when he shoots 'em into the wrong parties. You furnish patent, incandescent lights for premises where the torch of Hymen has burned so low you can't light a cigar at it. Am I right, Mr. Gooch?"

  "I have undertaken cases," said the lawyer, guardedly, "in the line to which your figurative speech seems to refer. Do you wish to consult me professionally, Mr. -- " The lawyer paused, with significance.

  "Not yet," said the other, with an arch wave of his cigar, "not just yet. Let us approach the subject with the caution that should have been used in the original act that makes this pow-wow necessary. There exists a matrimonial jumble to be straightened out. But before I give you names I want your honest -- well, anyhow, your professional opinion on the merits of the mix-up. 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. "I will 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. I've read 'em all. I would like to discuss with you the divine right of the soul as opposed to the freedom-destroy- ing restrictions of a bigoted and narrow-minded society. But I will proceed to business. I would prefer to lay the matter before you in an impersonal way until vou pass upon its merits. That is to describe it as a sup- posable instance, without -- "

  "You wish to state a hypothetical case?" said Lawyer Gooch.

  "I was going to say that," said the lady, sharply. "Now, suppose there is a woman who is all soul and heart and aspirations for a complete existence. This woman has a husband who is far below her in intellect, in taste -- in everything. Bah! he is a brute. He despises literature. He sneers at the lofty thoughts of the world's great thinkers. He thinks only of real estate and such sordid things. He is no mate for a woman with soul. We will say that this unfortunate wife one day meets with her ideal -a man with brain and heart and force. She loves him. Although this man feels the thrill of a new-found affinity he is too noble, too honourable to declare himself. He flies from the presence of his beloved. She flies after him, trampling, with superb indifference, upon the fetters with which an unenlightened social system would bind her. Now, what will a divorce cost? Eliza Ann Timmins, the poetess of Sycamore Gap, got one for three hundred and forty dollars. Can I -- I mean can this lady I speak of get one that cheap?"

  "Madam," said Lawyer Gooch, "your last two or three sentences delight me with their intelligence and clearness. Can we not now abandon the hypothetical and come down to names and business?"

  "I should say so," exclaimed the lady, adopting the practical with admirable readiness. "Thomas R. Bil- lings is the name of the low brute who stands between the happiness of his legal -- his legal, but not his spiri- tual -- wife and Henry K. Jessup, the noble man whom nature intended for her mate. I," concluded the client, with an air of dramatic revelation, "am Mrs. Billings!"

  "Gentlemen to see you, sir," shouted Archibald, invad- ing the room almost at a handspring. Lawyer Gooch arose from his chair.

  "Mrs. Billings," he said courteously, "allow me to conduct you into the adjoining office apartment for a few minutes. I am expecting a very wealthy old gentleman on busines connected with a will. In a very short while I will join you, and continue our consultation."

  With his acc
ustomed chivalrous manner, Lawyer Gooch ushered his soulful client into the remaining unoccupied room, and came out, closing the door with circumspection.

  The next visitor introduced by Archibald was a thin, nervous, irritable-looking man of middle age, with a worried and apprehensive expression of countenance. He carried in one hand a small satchel, which he set down upon the floor beside the chair which the lawyer placed for him. His clothing was of good quality, but it was worn without regard to neatness or style, and appeared to be covered with the dust of travel.

  "You make a specialty of divorce cases," he said, in, an agitated but business-like tone.

  "I may say," began Lawyer Gooch, "that my prac- tice has not altogether avoided -- "