Turning, he hurled his satchel with fury at the lawyer’s head. It
struck that astounded peacemaker between the eyes, causing him to
stagger backward a pace or two. When Lawyer Gooch recovered his wits he
saw that his client had disappeared. Rushing to the window, he leaned
out, and saw the recreant gathering himself up from the top of a shed
upon which he had dropped from the second-story window. Without
stopping to collect his hat he then plunged downward the remaining ten
feet to the alley, up which he flew with prodigious celerity until the
surrounding building swallowed him up from view.
Lawyer Gooch passed his hand tremblingly across his brow. It was a
habitual act with him, serving to clear his thoughts. Perhaps also it
now seemed to soothe the spot where a very hard alligator-hide satchel
had struck.
The satchel lay upon the floor, wide open, with its contents spilled
about. Mechanically, Lawyer Gooch stooped to gather up the articles.
The first was a collar; and the omniscient eye of the man of law
perceived, wonderingly, the initials H. K. J. marked upon it. Then came
a comb, a brush, a folded map, and a piece of soap. Lastly, a handful
of old business letters, addressed—every one of them—to “Henry K.
Jessup, Esq.”
Lawyer Gooch closed the satchel, and set it upon the table. He
hesitated for a moment, and then put on his hat and walked into the
office boy’s anteroom.
“Archibald,” he said mildly, as he opened the hall door, “I am going
around to the Supreme Court rooms. In five minutes you may step into
the inner office, and inform the lady who is waiting there that”—here
Lawyer Gooch made use of the vernacular—“that there’s nothing doing.”
IV
CALLOWAY’S CODE
The New York _Enterprise_ sent H. B. Calloway as special correspondent
to the Russo-Japanese-Portsmouth war.
For two months Calloway hung about Yokohama and Tokio, shaking dice
with the other correspondents for drinks of ‘rickshaws—oh, no, that’s
something to ride in; anyhow, he wasn’t earning the salary that his
paper was paying him. But that was not Calloway’s fault. The little
brown men who held the strings of Fate between their fingers were not
ready for the readers of the _Enterprise_ to season their breakfast
bacon and eggs with the battles of the descendants of the gods.
But soon the column of correspondents that were to go out with the
First Army tightened their field-glass belts and went down to the Yalu
with Kuroki. Calloway was one of these.
Now, this is no history of the battle of the Yalu River. That has been
told in detail by the correspondents who gazed at the shrapnel smoke
rings from a distance of three miles. But, for justice’s sake, let it
be understood that the Japanese commander prohibited a nearer view.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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