"Well, Mr. Koerner," said Marriott, "I'm glad you're about again. How are you getting along?"
"Vell, ve get along; I bin some goodt yet, you bet. I can vash--I sit up to dose tubs dere undt help der oldt voman."
Marriott's brows knotted in a perplexity that took on the aspect of a mild horror. It required some effort for him to realize this old man sitting with a wash-tub between his knees; the thought degraded the leonine figure. He wished that Koerner had not told him, and he hastened to change the subject.
"Your case will come on for trial now," he said; "we must talk it over and get our evidence in shape."
"Dot bin a long time alreadty, dot trial."
"Yes, it has," said Marriott, "but we'll get to it now in two weeks."
"Yah, dot's vat you say."
He puffed at his pipe a moment, sending out the thin wreaths of smoke in sharp little puffs. The strong face lifted its noble mask, the white hair--whiter than Marriott remembered it the last time--glistening like frost.
"You vait anoder year and I grow out anoder leg, maybe," Koerner smoked on in silence. But presently the thin lips that pinched the amber pipe-stem began to twitch, the blue eyes twinkled under their shaggy-white brows; his own joke about his leg put him in good humor, and he forgot his displeasure. Marriott felt a supreme pity for the old man. He marveled at his patience, the patience everywhere exhibited by the voiceless poor. There was something stately in the old man, something dignified in the way in which he accepted calamity and joked it to its face.
Marriott found relief in turning to the case. As he was looking for the pleadings, he said carelessly: