The Landloper Part 61

"What is your first name?"

"Thornton."

"Sit down, Thornton!"

The visitor obeyed.

"What have you done that you're ashamed of, my boy?"

"I cannot tell you," said Bristol, firmly.

"Oh, but you're going to," insisted the lawyer, with just as much firmness. "You are now retaining me as your attorney and counsel--whether you know it or not. And when a man talks to his lawyer and tells the truth it's no betrayal of confidence. Out with it!"

"There's nothing to be done, Mr. Converse."

"There's always something which can be done when a man is in trouble.

You are Morgan Bristol's son. I was in school with your father. He went West and settled. Is he alive?"

"I think so."

"How is it that you don't know?"

Mr. Converse settled himself into the tone and pose of the cross-examiner.

"I have been a vagrant, hiding myself in the highways and byways of this country, for a long time."

"What happened to drive you out like that?"

"Right there, Mr. Converse, is where I must halt. It is a family matter.

I cannot go into it."

"Look here, Thornton, you are in trouble. If you are in trouble, so is your father. He has lost a boy! You can tell me now what it's all about, or I'll drop my affairs and go and hunt up Morgan Bristol and ask him about it. You may just as well save me all that time and trouble. You're a lawyer, yourself--I know it."

"Yes."

"And you're a good one and know our code when it comes to secrets. I am not asking you to expose a family skeleton--I'm demanding that you treat me as your attorney and trust to my discretion. You are in trouble and need a helper, and, by gad! you have got to take me into this thing."

Thornton Bristol set his elbows on his knees and clutched his shaking fingers into his hair.

"I have been meaning to keep it all to myself, sir," he stammered.

"Quite likely. You have done mighty well at it, I should judge. But you know that any man who acts as his own lawyer usually does a mighty poor job. He lacks perspective."

Bristol did not reply.

"I have been studying you a little since I have known you," the lawyer went on. "You are a very strange mixture, my boy. I much fear that in some things in this life you are too quixotic in your views. We had a case here in town--a man named Andrew Kilgour--"

"I have heard about that man, sir."

"Thornton, from what glimpses I have had of your nature, I'm going to tell you here and now that you are covering somebody else's fault. You are no coward. You would face your own delinquency just as bravely as you came here and faced me to-night. Now, what did your father do?"

"Speculated with trust funds of estates."

"Old story, eh? Too bad, Morgan. I liked you when you were young."

"But I want you to understand it," cried the son. "It is hard for me to talk about it, sir, but it isn't exactly the old story. My father was too indulgent where I was concerned. He tried to do more for me than he could afford. He didn't tell me the truth about his affairs--I supposed he was a rich man. I always had everything that money could furnish.

When he found that I was interested in the law he sent me to schools at home and abroad and ordered me to take my time and go to the bottom of all."

"Well, I reckon you did," stated Converse. "If ever I saw a chap with the true legal mind you have it, polished and pointed. You came into this state and saw a solution for a problem which has blocked us for twenty-five years. It's good law! And we will have a legislature that will pa.s.s it. But when did you find out that your father had taken other folks' money?"

"I came home and insisted on going to work in the office. Then he told me. The settlement was due and had been called for. He was obliged to tell me. And he tried to convince me that he had not taken the money for my sake. He was willing to appear in my eyes a thief without excuse. But I knew. I had selfishly accepted it all without thought--and only half grateful. Young men are thoughtless, sir."

"Your father seems to have been quixotic after his own fas.h.i.+on, Thornton. I think I remember some of his traits when he was in school.

But as old Hard-Times Brewster used to say, 'We are all poor, queer critters and some be queerer than the others!' So you were a little queerer than your father, eh, and tried to square matters by a worse piece of folly?"

"It may have been folly. Perhaps it was. But I did not stop to argue or reason. That money had been spent on me. I accepted the blame. I said nothing to my father. I wrote letters to the persons who had lost. I told them that I had taken the money as my father's agent--without his knowledge. I said I had deceived him as well as them. And then, so that I might not perjure myself on the witness-stand or have the truth gimleted out of me by lawyers, I put on rags and hid myself among the thousands who trudge the highways and ride the trusses of freight-cars.

And no one has come to me and put heavy hand on my shoulder and said, 'I want you!' But some one will come if I remain here. I am going to hide myself again."

"I say it has all been a piece of folly," insisted Converse. "Dear folly! Yes, almost n.o.ble folly! But it must end, my boy. I suppose your father is back there toiling to repay those men from whom he took money."

"I suppose so, Mr. Converse. But he has not been disgraced in the eyes of the public."

"There's where your n.o.ble folly has made its mistake. You have doubled his grief, Thornton. Just sit there a moment and ponder. You will understand what I mean."

"I have understood--I have pondered--but I have not had the courage to go back. At least, they could not say to him that his son was in prison.

He has escaped that grief."

"And has endured a heavier one, my boy. I'm afraid you're a poor counselor in your own affairs." He came across the room to Bristol and slapped the bowed shoulder. "Now you have found a better one. I have taken your case."

The young man looked up into the kindly features of his adviser and was only half convinced.

"Don't you realize how easy it will be for you to make money from this time on? You don't? Well, let me tell you. As soon as you can be admitted to the bar in this state I'm going to make you my law partner.

Hold on! I'm doing you no especial favor--I'm putting into my office a man who had the legal ac.u.men to devise a plan to break the unholy clutch of plunderers who have had this state by the throat for a quarter of a century. I'm simply grabbing you before somebody else gets you. I expect to be governor of this state, and I want my law business looked after by a man who is able to keep up the reputation of the firm. But first of all, my boy, you and I are going back to your home. I think you'll find me a fairly good lawyer in straightening out tangles. I'll know just how to talk to those folks out there. And then you're coming back here with me and face this state as yourself and help me fight the legislation we want put through to enactment--and be d.a.m.ned to 'em!" He put his arm about the young man's shoulders and drew him to his feet. "It has been a hard day for you, my boy. There are some hard things ahead of you. You must go to bed. The morning will bring comfort and good counsel."

But when Bristol started toward the door Converse restrained him gently and led him toward the stairs which led up from the big vestibule.

"You're home, my boy--right here--you're home here from this time on!

This is your other home until your father needs you more than I do.

I have been pretty lonely in this house for a good many years without realizing just what was the matter with me."

"After all, you have only my word for what I am and what I have done,"

expostulated Bristol.

"Oh no, I have the evidence of my eyes and ears and my own common sense."

Bristol pressed the hand stretched forth to him.

"I'm not going to talk to you any more to-night," stated the host, when they were on the upper landing. "It will all seem different in the morning. It's going to be all right after this, Thornton. I'm sorry I haven't a wife. A woman understands how to listen to troubles better than a man. Is your mother alive?"