Some months after his late client had been taken away to begin serving his sentence this friend was sitting one morning in his office when the door opened and there entered the father of the youth, an elderly bearded hillsman. “Hal,” began the newcomer, “I come to see you to git you to do somethin’ ’bout my boy Wesley Junior.” “Well, Uncle Wes,” said the lawyer, “I don’t believe there is anything I can do. You remember how hard I worked for him at his trial—how I sweated down two or three collars over yonder in that courthouse and how I wasted all the oratory I had in my system and how I snapped both my suspenders. But in spite of all I could say, you know as well as I do what happened. The case went against us and the Judge gave Wesley five years in the State penitentiary and there he is!” “Yas, suh, Hal,” said the father. “Wesley Junior, is up thar in that there penitentiary and that’s jest the p’int! I got a letter frum him this mawnin’. And he told me to come to see you and to tell you to git him out of that place right-away—he’s plum dissatisfied.” § 64 The Question Categorical There is a certain young actor in New York, a player of romantic swashbuckler parts who, when he is sober, is one of the gentlest and most companionable of men. But when he indulges in strong water his nature changes. He becomes dogmatic, disputatious, and occasionally quarrelsome. Such times he delights to corner some inoffensive acquaintance and pin him down to a definite position on this subject or that and then debate the point for hours on end. One night, being in one of these alcoholically promoted moods, he trapped a friend against the bar of a certain club. The latter wished not to argue with any one on any topic whatsoever. But the actor would not have it so. “You go ’round saying you know so mush, don’t you?” he demanded belligerently. “You go ’round saying you know so many people in this town, don’t you? Thatsh kinda fellow you are, ain’t you—huh?” “Not at all,” protested the hapless friend, “I never——” “Pleash don’t contradict me,” said the actor; “thatsh no way to carry on argument between gen’men. Lemme get through stating my side and then I’ll lisshen to you. You go ’round saying you know more people in this club than I know, don’t you? Just answer me that!” “Why, I never said any such——” “Kin’ly lemme get word in edgeways, if you please,” said the actor with elaborate politeness. “You say you know more members of thish club ’en I do—more than anybody knows? A’right, then, you answer me thish: Do you know Jerome Lawrence—he’sh member here?” “Certainly, I know him,” said the badgered one, thinking he saw a loophole. “As it happens, I also know his brother, Oscar, who looks so much like him.”