A Modern Wizard

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G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK LONDON 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND The Knickerbocker Press 1894
COPYRIGHT, 1894 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by The Knickerbocker Press, New York G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Early one morning, in the spring of eighteen hundred and seventy-three, two young lawyers were seated in their private office. The firm name, painted in gilt letters upon the glass of the door, was DUDLEY & BLISS. Mortimer Dudley was the senior member, though not over thirty years old. Robert Bliss was two years younger.
Mr. Dudley was sorting some papers and deftly tying them into bundles with red tape. Why lawyers will persist in using tape of a sanguine color is an unsolvable mystery to me, unless it may be that they are loath to disturb the many old adages in which the significant couplet of words appears. However that may be, Mr. Dudley paused in his occupation, attracted by an exclamation from his partner, who had been reading a morning paper.
What is it, Robert? asked Mr. Dudley.
Oh! Only another sensational murder case, destined, I imagine, to add more lustre to the name of some lawyer who doesn't need it. Mortimer, I wonder when our turn will come. Here we have been in these rooms for three months, and not a criminal case has come to us yet.
Don't be impatient, Robert. We must not give up hope. Look at Munson. He was in the same class with us at college, and we all considered him a dunce. By accident he was engaged to defend that fellow who was accused of poisoning his landlady. Munson actually studied chemistry in order to defend the case. His cross-examination of the prosecution's experts made him famous. Who knows! We may get an opportunity like that some day.