Mr. Cutting stopped. “Get more time!” he said sharply.
“I can’t,” said Bruce. “Heminway has put his foot down. No one can make him change his mind now.”
“Stuff!” said Mr. Cutting. “Dick, go over and tell Heminway I want that Reed case put over the term.” And he went out.
Cutting finished the Gravesend races, laid the paper on his desk, scribbled a stipulation, and leisurely departed.
As the door closed, the junior partners looked at each other and smiled. Then said Smith, “I wish I could be there and see it.”
Bruce chuckled. He could imagine the scene tolerably well. “It will do him a lot of good,” he said. Then he added: “Don’t you think I had better write personally to Hawkins and explain matters? Of course we shall have to pay the costs.”
“Yes,” said Smith; “it’s better to explain at once. It’s a piece of bad business.”
The younger Cutting announced himself as Mr. Cutting, of Cutting, Bruce & Smith. That was a name which carried weight, and the office boy jumped up and looked at him curiously, for he took him for the Mr. Cutting. Then he led him down a private passage into the inner and holy place of the great Mr. Heminway.
“He’ll be back in a moment, sir,” said the boy. “He’s stepped into Mr. Anson’s office.” Mr. Anson was the junior partner.
The door into the waiting-room was ajar about an inch. Cutting peeped through it, and saw the people who wished to consult the great lawyer. He knew some of them. There was a banker who had recently thrown Wall street into confusion by buying two railroads in one day. There were others equally well known, and a woman whose income was a theme for the Sunday newspapers. Cutting watched them stewing and fidgeting with an unlovely satisfaction. It was unusual for such persons to wait for anybody.