A Thoughtless Yes Part 7

"Yes, we were in," she began, enthusiastically. "It was perfect and--"

"I don't know what you call perfect," broke in he, "I called it beastly.

It was so cold I felt like a frog when I got out, and you looked half frozen. The fact is, this is too far north to bathe for pleasure in the surf. It may be good for one's health, but it is anything but pleasant.

Now at Old Point Comfort it is different. I like it there."

"Why, James," said his wife, "I thought you preferred this because of the more bracing and exhilarating effect."

After a little more objection, which he seemed to think firmly established his independence, he ended his remarks thus:

"Of course, as you say, it is more bracing. Yes, that's a fact, Margaret. I couldn't help noticing when I came out this morning that I felt like a new man, and you--why, 'pon my word, you looked as bright and rosy as a girl of sixteen. Oh, the surf here is great. It really is.

I like it; don't you?"

This last he had addressed to me. I was so occupied in a study of, and so astonished by, the facility with which he took his mental flops, after enjoying his little "kick," that I was taken off my feet by his sudden appeal to me, and was quite at a loss for a reply which would do justice to the occasion, and at the same time put a stop to the contest between husband and wife.

But, as usual, my wife hastened to my rescue and covered my confusion by her gay little laugh and explanation.

"Ha, ha, ha," she laughed, "you have caught my husband napping already.

I know exactly where he was. He was lumbering along through an elaborate speculation on, and a comparison of, the relative merits of--" here she began telling them off on her fingers to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of our neighbors--"first, fresh and salt water bathing; second, the method, time, place, and condition of each as affected by the moon, stars, and Gulf Stream. He was, most likely, climbing over Norway with a thermometer, or poking a test-tube of some kind into the semi-liquefaction which pa.s.ses itself off as water to those unfortunates who are stranded along the sh.o.r.es of the Mississippi. Just wait; one of these days he will get down to our discussion and he'll agree with us when he gets there. But don't hurry him."

We all joined in the laugh at my expense; and I remarked that I had served so long as a target for my wife's fun that even if I could skip around, mentally, at as lively a rate as she seemed to expect, I would pretend that I couldn't, in order not to deprive her of her chief source of amus.e.m.e.nt. At this point our neighbor's new cook came to the edge of their porch and asked her mistress if she might speak to her for a moment. She arose to go.

"Oh, thunder, Margaret, I hope you don't intend to allow that worthless girl to call you home every time you go any place. Tell her to wait. It can't be much she wants," said our neighbor.

"Jane," said his wife sweetly, reseating herself, "you can wait until I come home. It won't be long."

"I wonder if you'd better do that, Margaret," said he, just as our wives had begun to discuss something relative to housekeeping. "Jane is a good girl, and she wouldn't call you if it were not something important, Don't you think we had better go at once?"

"I did think so," said she, and bidding us goodnight our neighbors crossed the lawn and re-entered their own door and closed it for the night.

After a long pause my wife said, in a stage whisper: "I suppose it is his way of showing that he is 'boss,' as the boys say--the final appeal in his own household--his idea of the dignity of the masculine prerogative."

A sudden stop. I thought she expected me to say something, so I began:

"I don't know. I doubt it. It looks to me like a case of--"

"Don't! don't!" exclaimed my wife, in tragic accents "oh, _don't_ catch it. I really couldn't live with a chronic objector. Anything else. I really believe I could stand any other phase of bullying better than that--to feel that at any minute I am liable to run against a solid wall of 'I don't agree with you!' If it were _real_ I wouldn't mind it so much; but to hear that man 'kick,' as you say, just for the sake of a.s.serting himself, and then come around as he does, is perfectly maddening. The very first symptom I see in you I shall look upon it as a danger signal--I'll move."

At that moment, before our quiet little laugh, at their expense, had died away, there floated out from the bedroom window of our neighbors'

cottage, this refrain:

"Well, goodness knows, Margaret, _I_ didn't want to come home. I knew it was all perfect nonsense. If you--"

My wife suddenly arose, took me by the hand and said quite seriously: "Come in the house, dear. This atmosphere is too unwholesome to endure any longer."

The next day she said to me, "Let's go to Old Point Comfort next year."

"All right," said I; "but what shall we do with the cottage? You know we hold the lease for another year, with the 'refusal' to buy."

"Rent it to your worst enemy, or, better still, get him to buy it. Just think of the exquisite revenge you could take that way. Twenty-four hours every day, for four long months each year, to know that you had him planted next door to a 'chronic kicker.' Or don't you hate anybody bad enough for that?" and my wife actually shuddered.

"I don't believe I do, dear," said I; "but I'll do my level best to _rent_ it to him for one season. You know I wouldn't care to murder him; if he's hopelessly maimed I'll be satisfied."

We both laughed; but the next day I advertised the lease of a cottage for sale very cheap, and gave as a reason my desire to go where there were fewer people. I think this will catch my enemy. He likes a crowd, and he'd enjoy nothing better than to feel that I was forced to pay half of his rent. So I marked the paper and sent it to him, and confidently await the result.

FOR THE PROSECUTION.

_"So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human sufferings that even Justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain."_--George Eliot.

I.

Shortly after Fred Mathews began the practice of law he was elected to the office of Prosecuting Attorney in the Western town to which he had gone when first admitted to the bar.

Of course, every law student becomes familiar with the jests and gibes cast at the members of the profession as men who are peculiarly economical of the truth. He smiles with those who hint that a lawyer is always lavish of advice that leads to litigation.

That students of Blackstone and c.o.ke hear much merrymaking over and some serious criticism of the quibbles to which the best of them are supposed to resort--of making little of real evidence and much of trivialities--goes without saying. Nor are they unaware of the fact--alas! sometimes too well founded upon strong evidence--that the general public appears to be convinced that laws are made for the purpose of shielding the rich and oppressing the poor or unfortunate.

No student of average ability enters practice uninformed that there is a widespread belief that a man of social position or financial power has little to fear as a result of his misdeeds, while his less fortunate neighbor could not hope to escape the worst legal consequences of his most trivial lapse from rect.i.tude.

Fred Mathews had made up his mind--as many a young fellow had done before him--that he would do everything in his power to hold the scales of justice level.

He determined that such ability as he possessed should be used for the benefit of society, and that neither bribe nor threat should ever entice him from the strict performance of his duty to the profession which he had entered. He would never accept a case in which he did not honestly believe. No man's money should buy him and no man's wrath intimidate. In short, he intended to be a lawyer with a conscience as well as a man of integrity, no matter what the result might be.

He made so good a beginning in the first two years of his practice that it was at the end of the third, when he found himself holding the office of Prosecuting Attorney, with a record clean, and fair sailing ahead, that a piece of news which came to him caused him to doubt himself for the first time.

The shock of that doubt thrilled every fibre in his nature, for with it came the one fear that is terrible to a brave mind which is aroused for the first time to its own possibilities--the fear to trust itself--the dread lest it betray its own higher nature under the pressure of old habits of thought or new social problems.

Right and wrong had always seemed to him to have the most decided and clear-cut outlines. He had never thought of himself as standing before them unable to distinguish their boundaries. He had felt that he could answer bravely enough the question: "What would you do if required to choose between honor and dishonor?" It was a strange thing to him that his present perplexity should grow out of a simple burglary case. There did not appear to him, at first, to be more than one side to such a case. He was the Prosecuting Attorney. A store had been robbed. Among other things a sealskin sacque was taken. By means of this cloak the burglary had been traced--it was claimed--to a certain young man high in social life. The duties of his office had led the State's attorney to prosecute the investigation with his usual vigor and impartiality until he had succeeded beyond his fairest hopes. Indeed, the chain of evidence now in his possession was so strong and complete that he--for the first time in his career--recognized that he shrank from using the testimony at his command.

He felt that it was his duty to cause to be apprehended a young man who had up to the present time borne a spotless reputation; who had been a fellow student at college; whose social position was that of a leader, and who was soon to marry one of the most charming girls in the town.

The situation was painful, but Fred Mathews felt that his own honor was at stake quite as truly as was that of his old schoolfellow. Here was his first opportunity to show that he held his duty above his desires.

Here was the first case in which social influence and financial power were on the side of a criminal whom it was his duty to prosecute to the end.

His professional pride, as well as his honor, was enlisted; for this was the third burglary which had been committed recently, and so far the "gang"--as the newspapers a.s.sumed and the police believed the offenders to be--had not been caught.

Fred Mathews now thought he had every reason to believe that the same hand had executed all three crimes and that the recklessness of the last--the almost Wanton defiance of perfectly natural means of precaution and concealment--had led to the discovery of this burglar in high life.

After long deliberation, however, the young prosecutor made up his mind that he would so far compromise with his conscience as to make a personal, private call upon the young man who was under suspicion and boldly accuse him of the theft of the tell-tale cloak that had been traced to him, and take the consequences.

He was well aware that in case this course should lead to the escape of the criminal he would be compelled to bear the abuse and suspicion which would surely follow, for the evidence had pa.s.sed through other hands than his own.

He knew that he was taking a method which would be called in question, and that he would not take it if the suspected man lived in a less fashionable street or had the misfortune to be low born.

All this he knew quite well, and still he argued to himself that it was the right thing for him to do, or at least that it was the best possible under the circ.u.mstances, and that after giving Walter Banks a private chance to clear himself--if such a thing were possible--he would still be in a position to go on with the case, if that should be necessary.