Hartruff, it is true, took offence when Norris told it in his presence,—but trust Norris for picking out the hundredth man. He has about as much tact as Hartruff has conscience, so they are admirably adapted for mutual misunderstanding.
They encountered in the smoking-room of the Equity Club after lunch, where the usual number of lawyers were gathered to bore one another with dissertations on their respective cases. One can sometimes obtain useful information by listening to a good deal of tiresome boasting, but the real reward for enduring long blasts of someone else’s horn is, of course, the privilege of blowing your own. Norris, however, cared nothing for performances of this kind, and the first professional toot was, as a rule, the signal for his departure.
The man who doesn’t boast is apt to be popular, but the man who won’t listen to boasting is invariably disliked. Norris was not popular, and the loudest performers hinted that he hadn’t any practice to talk about. What induced him to depart from his usual custom on this particular occasion I do not know, unless, as I have said, it was his fatal genius for picking out the hundredth man.
Groton had been discoursing for twenty minutes on his triumphant progress through a case with which all his hearers were supposed to be familiar—for Groton thinks a breathless world watches his career—when he happened to mention somebody as being of “no political importance.”
“There isn’t any such person,” interrupted Norris.
Groton stopped and looked at the speaker in surprise.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you, Groton,” continued Norris, “I’ve a bad habit of thinking aloud. Go on with what you were saying.”
Groton resumed his recital, and when at last his story reached the Court of Appeals and the final discomforture of all his opponents he turned indulgently to Norris.
“And now tell us, Norris, why you say there is no one politically unimportant.”
“I was thinking of an experience Jack Holcomb had a few years ago——”