somewhat dingy offices where my father had practised
in the Blackwood Block, the quarters of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon on
the eighth floor of the new Durrett Building were modern to a degree,
finished in oak and floored with marble, with a railed-off space where
young women with nimble fingers played ceaselessly on typewriters. One
of them informed me that Mr. Watling was busy, but on reading my card
added that she would take it in. Meanwhile, in company with two others
who may have been clients, I waited. This, then, was what it meant to be
a lawyer of importance, to have, like a Chesterfield, an ante-room where
clients cooled their heels and awaited one's pleasure...

The young woman returned, and led me through a corridor to a door on
which was painted Mr. Wailing.

I recall him tilted back in his chair in a debonnair manner beside his
polished desk, the hint of a smile on his lips; and leaning close to him
was a yellow, owl-like person whose eyes, as they turned to me, gave the
impression of having stared for years into hard, artificial lights. Mr.
Watling rose briskly.

"How are you, Hugh?" he said, the warmth of his greeting tempered by
just the note of condolence suitable to my black clothes. "I'm glad
you came. I wanted to see you before you went back to Cambridge. I must
introduce you to Judge Bering, of our State Supreme Court. Judge, this
is Mr. Paret's boy."

The judge looked me over with a certain slow impressiveness, and gave me
a soft and fleshy hand.

"Glad to know you, Mr. Paret. Your father was a great loss to our bar,"
he declared.

I detected in his tone and manner a slight reservation that could not be
called precisely judicial dignity; it was as though, in these few words,
he had gone to the limit of self-commitment with a stranger--a striking
contrast to the confidential attitude towards Mr. Watling in which I had
surprised him.

"Judge," said Mr. Watling, sitting down again, "do you recall that time
we all went up to Mr. Paret's house and tried to induce him to run for
mayor? That was before you went on the lower bench."

The judge nodded gloomily, caressing his watch chain, and suddenly rose
to go.

"That will be all right, then?" Mr. Watling inquired cryptically, with
a smile. The other made a barely perceptible inclination of the head and
departed. Mr. Watling looked at me. "He's one of the best men we have on
the bench to-day," he added. There was a trace of apology in his tone.