Teddy felt his heart contracting in a spasm of dread. The one fact he
knew of his brother-in-law was that he had sent him Stenhouse, one of
the three or four lawyers most famous at the New Jersey bar for saving
lives. This detail, too, the boy had learned from Boole.
"You’ll not get the cur’nt, with him to defend you, believe _me_. Some
bird! If he can’t prove you innocent, he’ll find a flaw in the law or
the indictment or somethin’. Why, they say he once got a guy off, a
Pole, the fella was, just on the spellin’ of his name."
Having been warned by Stenhouse not to discuss his case with anyone,
Teddy was discreetly silent. As a matter of fact, he had too much to
think of to be inclined to talk. The circumstance that "young Coll" had
become a relative was one of which he was just beginning to seize the
importance. His bruised mind had been unable at first to apprehend it.
Slowly he was coming to the realized knowledge that he was allied to
that Olympian race which the Collinghams represented to the Folletts,
and that, at least, some of their power was engaged on his behalf.
It was confusing. Since the might that had struck him down was also
coming to his aid, the issue was no longer clear-cut. To have all the
right on one side and all the wrong on the other had simplified life.
Now, a right that was partly wrong and a wrong that was partly right had
been personified, as it were, in this union through which a Collingham
had become a Follett, and a Follett a Collingham.
Young Coll was standing where Jennie had stood on the first occasion of
Teddy’s coming to the visitors’ room. He too waited with a smile. The
minute he saw the lad appear timidly on the threshold he limped forward
with outstretched hand.
"Hello, Teddy!" His embarrassment, being a kindly embarrassment, was
without awkwardness. "You didn’t know I was going to be your brother the
last time you saw me, did you?"
Teddy said nothing. He was not sullen, but neither was he friendly. A
Collingham, even though married to his sister, was probably a person to
be feared. Teddy’s counsel to himself was to be on his guard against
"the nigger in the woodpile."
"Perhaps it was my fault that you didn’t," Bob went on, with some
constraint. "That’s the reason why I’m here. I dare say there isn’t much
I can do for you, old boy, but what little there is I want to do."
Teddy eyed him steadily, still without making a reply. Somehow they
found chairs. Boole, having once more summed up the visitor, had
retreated toward the guard who sat officially at the far end of the
room.
"Looks like a good cuss," was Boole’s whispered confidence. "Kind o’
soft—like most o’ them swell sports that marries working goyls."
Bob was finding himself less and less at his ease. The boy not only came
none of the way to meet him, but seemed to hold him as an enemy. By his
silence and by the severity of his regard he conveyed the impression
that young Coll, and not himself, had done the wrong.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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