Hobart shook his head.
“I didn’t suppose it would,” said the reporter, taking the blotter and beginning to obliterate the picture by adding a bushy beard and a bristling mustache to the face.
The judge and Forsyth were anxiously discussing the advisability of calling in the senior member of a great law firm to act as a go-between in the appeal to the Governor, the editor urging it and the lawyer objecting on the score of time.
“It is my impression that he isn’t in town,” the judge was saying. “And, in any event, what is done must be done quickly. It is a matter of hours for Brant now.”
Hobart took no part in the discussion. He was leaning over the reporter’s shoulder watching the strokes of the idle pencil. Suddenly he put out his hand and stopped it:
“Hold on a minute; that begins to look something like a man I’ve seen somewhere. Let me think.”
The exclamation drew the attention of the others, and they examined the sketch while the assayer was trying to recall the suggestion.
“Let me look at it again,” he said, and he knitted his brows over it for a breathless minute while they waited in silence.
“I can’t place it,” he added, at length. “I thought at first it looked a little like the man Isaac Gasset.”
“Who is he?” asked the reporter.