Coincidence is so familiar a part of the daily routine that I was not much surprised when my acquaintance, the astute poker player with the scar, walked in upon us at the Auditorium. But Roebuck was both astonished and chagrined when we shook hands and greeted each other like old friends.
"How do you do, Mr. Sayler?" said Woodruff.
"Glad to see you, Doctor Woodruff," I replied. "Then you knew me all the time? Why didn't you speak out? We might have had an hour's business talk in the train."
"If I'd shown myself as leaky as all that, I guess there'd have been no business to talk about," he replied. "Anyhow, I didn't know you till you took out your watch with the monogram on the back, just as we were pulling in. Then I remembered where I'd seen your face before. I was up at your state house the day that you threw old Dominick down. That's been a good many years ago."
That chance, easy, smoking-compartment meeting, at which each had studied the other dispassionately, was most fortunate for us both.
The relation that was to exist between us—more, much more, than that of mere employer and employé—made fidelity, personal fidelity, imperative; and accident had laid the foundation for the mutual attachment without which there is certain to be, sooner or later, suspicion on both sides, and cause for it.
The two hours and a half with Woodruff, at and after dinner, served to reinforce my first impression. I saw that he was a thorough man of the world, that he knew politics from end to end, and that he understood the main weaknesses of human nature and how to play upon them for the advantage of his employers and for his own huge amusement. He gave a small exhibition of that skill at the expense of Roebuck. He appreciated that Roebuck was one of those unconscious hypocrites who put conscience out of court in advance by assuming that whatever they wish to do is right or they could not wish to do it. He led Roebuck on to show off this peculiarity of his,—a jumbling, often in the same breath, of the most sonorous piety and the most shameless business perfidy. All the time Woodruff's face was perfectly grave,—there are some men who refuse to waste any of their internal enjoyment in external show.
Before he left us I arranged to meet him the next morning for the settlement of the details of his employment. When Roebuck and I were alone, I said: "What do you know about him? Who is he?"
"He comes of a good family here in Chicago,—one of the best. Perhaps you recall the Bowker murder?"
"Vaguely," I answered.