"Don't you think we're running entirely too close to the wind?" I asked, pacing up and down the office.
"My dear Quib," answered Gottlieb soothingly, "don't agitate yourself over so trifling a matter. The only living man who can prove that Hawkins was served is Bunce—and Bunce is a fool. At best it would simply be one swearing against the other. We have a perfect right to believe Hawkins in preference to Bunce if we choose. Anyhow, we're not the judge. All we have to do is to present the evidence at our command—if we can get it. And, by God! we will get it if it costs us ten thousand dollars! Why, Quib, the thing is a windfall. Thirty-five thousand! Why, thirty-five hundred for such a case would be a big fee!"
"I don't know!" I answered, for I felt a curious premonition in the matter. "Something tells me that we ought to take no chances."
"Come, come!" quoth Gottlieb, with a light show of irritation. "Don't lose your nerve. You've done many a worse thing than this, to my own knowledge!"
I do not pretend to any virtue in the matter and yet I must admit to some feelings of compunction about Mrs. Dillingham. Truth to tell, I had taken a strong dislike to her husband, with his sleek confidence and cold-blooded selfishness. In addition, I was quite sure that there was some other fell reason why he wished to divorce her—probably he had another marriage in contemplation, even if he had not admitted it.
"I wish we could make the beggar do his own dirty work," I exclaimed.
"But what does he pay us for?" inquired Gottlieb innocently. "Quib, just think of the money!"
I had, in fact, been thinking of the money, and it looked very good to me. Since my days in Haight & Foster's law office, a great, great change had come in my manner of life; and, though my friends to a great extent remained among the theatrical and sporting class to which I had received my first introduction on coming to New York, I now occupied a large brick house with stone trimmings in Washington Square, where I entertained in truly luxurious fashion. I had a French cook and an English butler, and drove a pair of trotters that were second to none except those of William H. Vanderbilt, with whom I had many a fast brush on the speedways.
Though I had never allowed myself to be caught in the net of matrimony, I had many friends among the fair sex, particularly among those who graced the footlights; and some of my evening parties did not break up until dawn was glinting over the roofs of the respectable mansions round about me. It was a gay life, but it cost money—almost more money than I could make; and my share in the thirty-five thousand dollars offered by our friend Dillingham would go a long way to keeping up my establishment for another year. So I allowed my qualms to give me no further uneasiness and told myself that Gottlieb was clever enough to manage the business in such a fashion that there would be no "come-back."
A week or so later I encountered in our office a narrow-shouldered, watery-eyed, reddish-nosed party that I instantly recognized for Hawkins. There could be no doubt about the matter, for he had a way of standing at attention and thrusting his head forward when addressed that were unmistakable. He was waiting, it turned out, for Gottlieb, who had sent for him to come on from Baltimore; and the readiness with which he had responded could be better accounted for by the five hundred dollars which he had received at the hands of our emissary for travelling expenses than by any desire on his part to regain the society of the present Mrs. Dillingham.