"Yes. The idea now is that Harland, who was one of the Copper crowd, suspected and accused him, that there was a fierce interview in the course of which the lawyer realized he was beaten and ruined." "Good gracious!" I said. "What are they going to do with him?" "If he doesn’t show up, go after him. A group of ruined financiers doesn’t kneel down and pray for their money to come back. And they’ve got a man looking after their interests who’s a lightning striker. A friend of yours. Guess who?" "Wilbur Whitney!" I crowed. "The same," said Babbitts. "Then," I cried, "they’ll have him and the twenty millions served up on a salver before the week’s out." If you don’t know the story of the Hesketh Mystery you don’t know who Wilbur Whitney is, so I’ll tell you here. He’s one of the biggest lawyers in New York and one of the biggest men anywhere. You’d as soon suspect that an insignificant atom like me would know a man like him as that the palace ashman would know the Czar of Russia, but I do, well—I guess I’m not stretching things if I say we’re friends. The Babbitts and the Whitneys don’t exchange calls, but they think a lot of each other just the same. And it’s my doing, little Molly’s—yes, sir, the ex-telephone girl. In the Hesketh case I did a job for Mr. Whitney that brought us together, and ever since it’s been kindnesses from the big house off Fifth Avenue, to the little flat on Ninety-fifth Street. He doesn’t forget—the real eighteen-carat people never do—and he’ll send me tickets for the opera one night and tip off Soapy to a bit of news so he’ll get a scoop the week after. Oh, he’s just _grand_! And right in his office—Mr. Whitney’s assistant this year—is one of our realest, truest, dearest pals, Jack Reddy. If this is your first acquaintance with me you don’t know much about him and I’ll have to give you a little sketch of him for he’s got a lot to do with this story. To look at he’s just all right, brown with light-colored hair and gray eyes, over six feet and not an ounce of fat on him. It’s not because he’s my friend that I’m saying all this, everybody agrees on it. He’s thirty years old now and not married. That’s because of a tragedy in his life: the girl he loved was killed nearly three years ago. It’s a long story—I can’t stop to tell it to you—but it broke him up something dreadful, though I and Babbitts and all of us know it was better that he shouldn’t have married her. Ever since I’ve been hoping he’d meet up with his real affinity, someone who’d be the right woman for him. But he hasn’t so far. Babbitts says the girl isn’t born I’d think good enough—but I don’t know. I guess in the ninety millions of people we’ve got scattered round this vast republic there’s a lady that’ll fill the bill.