Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-04-23

4 quarter OF century OF school.
When he came to the office of Bower
q Woodman the law partners had
gone home, and he lit the gas without
thinking of his supper and went to
work. When the big clock over in
the courthouse dome droned out the
hour of eleven he went through the
delicate star light to his humble lodo-
ings in the outskirt of the town with
his hat in his hand, cooling his forehead
against the soft night wind. On the
morrow he had himself sleepin groom
fitted up at the top of the brick block
in which the Office of Bower & Wood
man lay, and through the next two
years was well nigh as little seen in
public places as the still book-keeper.
He got forward in the law at some.
thing like an amazing pace, so old
Woodman often said in substance to
the judge. following the statement,
when his partner was not looking, with
one of his ''hair'' pantomimes.
| Occasionally, at the judge s invitation,
John Earling would 60 home with him
to tea, and give himself an hour
or two of recreation by talking with
Mrs. Bower or sitting in the swing
under the cool trees. But the elder
lawyer of the firm, for all his grim
and curious admiration of the youth,
was chary of his courtesies. He never
| invited him to his house, nor indeed
| any young people, but had an alert
| and brusque sort of kindness for him
| which John Earling found pleasant
and unfailing. Under the guise of ex-
planning some point, he would talk to the
young man by the hour when Judge
Bower was out. giving him history of
cases in his own experience, and eluci-
dating intricate passages and situations
| in law. John EARRING, with his head
bent down little, would fasten his
| clear eyes upon the amber-colored orbs
that looked out from under the old
lawyers shaggy brows, and follow his
| thought until their minds seemed some
| times one. Often the old lawyer would
stop and say: "Now you have the sit
uation, following this line of action,
how would you come out?" And when
his young auditor sometimes OWNED
the outcome, which often could hardly
be found with any thing short of inspi-
ration, the old attorney would slap his
leg with infinite relish and exclaim:
"By snum! you struck it,"
When the winter had gone, following
upon the autumn in which he received
the check from Joel. John Earring
gathered from the old LAWYER remarks
to his partner that he had sent the
willful Maun away to sisters acad-
envy in an Eastern town, to which in
formation Judge Bower had shook his
head and closed his lips very tight,
opening them with the remark: THAT
he didn't believe it would work"
Thereafter the old attorney seemed
less alert and less ta1katiye through the
summer, and in the fall John Earring
gathered again from their habit of con-
versing while he worked, that Maun
had come home, without consulting
the pleasure of any one beyond her
self, and refused to return. The old
lawyer had laughed with the recital,
and his partner had said, with a IA
miliar drawl: "Well, it seems to me.
Woodman, that you will either have to
give her no rein at all or put the
lines entirely into her hands. You're
too soft on one side and too hard on
the other; you pen her up, to be sure,
You better make party and bring
her out and let her feel that she is a
woman"
But the old lawyer shook his head
and was silent. Deep in his heart
there lay jealous dread of the inevi-
table day when this one and only being
that he loved should take her heart in
great part from him and yield it to an
other. He often felt with he impetuou-
kisses on his lips, and other childlks
exhibitions of wild kind OF fondneSs,
that he never could bear it. So he de-
layed acting upon the judges sugges-
ton, and time ran on with Maun
studying at home under the tutelage Of
her father and a lady from the East.
Once or twice thereafter John Earl
ing saw her cantering her white pony
over the swelling slopes. and for days
the pretty picture fingered in his mind
AS the autumn fell away into the
winter after the coming home of Maun
the old lawyer seemed fresher hearted
and resumed his curious conversations
with John Earling. Upon one of these |
occasions when in the midst of an in
tricatc demonstration with his eyes
fixed intcntly upon his eager auditor,
something in the matter under dissec- |
ton seemed suddenly to suggest pre-
vlously considered question, for he |
stopped short and said:
what was the reason you wasn't |
satisfied in Joefs store?"
'Why, SIR" replied the young man,
with some surprise, you may remem- |
Der when l came to you l intima ted |
that things were not pleasant to ME at |
Mr.. Whitney's; besides, 1 wished to |
enter the law. you know"
WAS it for the reason that things |
did not 60 as honestly as you liked at
Frankly, sir, that was the case"
''Do you expect to follow the law |
honestly?"
Il do. in the finest sense of the
term
The old attorney spit in a slow,
doubtful way. and perhaps the first
time in his life, beat his pencil on the
table by which he was sitting for a
moment. looked at the youth much as
II he doubted his sanity or was sadly |
in his shrewdness, and |
said: 'Snum me! if l ever heard of
such thing"
why, SIR" SAID John EARRING, with
a smile, 81 was not aware that such a
statement contained any thing surpris.