"I’ve been in the profession more decades than I like to tell about," said General Wilson, with a lofty wave of the hand, "but I’ve been trying to get out of it for the last five years. Perhaps you can’t appreciate that, Hampden. Here you’re trying to get into it, and I dare say finding it devilish hard; but if you’re like me you’ll be trying to get out of it some day and finding it a damned sight harder yet." "I don’t doubt it," said I with pious mendacity. "Here’s the book," said Kendrick. But General Wilson waved him aside. "It’s wonderful the way business sticks to a man. I’ve got clients who just won’t be discharged. I thought a year ago that I was going to see the last of them, but no sooner did I mention it than they were all up in arms. ’We can’t spare you,’ they said. ’I must take a rest,’ I told them. ’Take it at our expense,’ they said. And the Ohio Midland gave me a special car and paid the expenses of a trip around the country, and the Pennsylvania Southern gave me a twenty-thousand-dollar check to settle for a vacation in Europe, and the Rockland and Western made me the present of a country place where I could go and have quiet; and after that what could I do?" "They must have been irresistible," I admitted. "Just so; but even then I tried to beg off. I told ’em I had enough money. It wasn’t money I wanted. It was rest--freedom from worry of business, the grinding care of law cases--that I was after. But it wouldn’t do. The Ohio Midland said, ’Wilson, if you can’t be with us, you mustn’t be against us. We know you’ll be back again. Take twenty thousand a year as a retainer and count yourself as one of us yet. We shouldn’t be easy else.’ But the Pennsylvania Southern and the Rockland and Western wouldn’t allow even that. They said, ’Wilson, we can’t do without you. We’ll give you all the help you want, but we must have you at the head. Name your own figures. It isn’t a question of money. You must be our leading counsel, even if you don’t look in on us more than once a quarter.’ I couldn’t shake ’em off, so, as I’ve been saying to Kendrick, I’m like to die in harness, though I’d give anything to be free and enjoy life as you young fellows do." "Just so," said Kendrick cheerily; "but you’re way out of the running about that Mosely matter. Here’s the book, and here’s the page, and it was just as I was telling you." "Ahem!" growled General Wilson, turning redder than ever and taking the book gingerly. "Oh, this is the thing you were talking about, is it? Of course, of course, you were quite right--Mosely, of course. I don’t need to read a word of it. I thought you were talking about that Moberly case. Mosely, of course. Well, I’ll send you those papers as soon as I get to New York. I must be off now. I’ve got to see Governor Stanford to-night, and he’s one of your early-to-bed men; so good night." "You’ll call in on me within the week, then?" said Kendrick, taking him to the door.