When Tooker had gone, Gallatin sat down again, glanced at his watch, then took up the morning paper, which he had not yet opened, and read, smiling. It amused him to think of Henry K. Loring sitting in the outer office, wasting time worth a hundred dollars a minute. It amused him so much that he dropped the paper, put his feet up on his desk, and lit a cigarette, to enjoy the situation more thoroughly. Leuppold, too, his suavity slowly yielding to his impatience, would be twisting his watch-fob by now or tapping his fat fingers on his legs, while he waited, his ease of mind little improved by the delay.
Gallatin’s smile diminished with his cigarette, and at last he looked at his watch and put his feet on the floor and rang for the chief clerk.
“You may show those gentlemen in, Tooker,” he said quietly.
Tooker glanced at the ashes of the cigarette, picked up the newspaper and put it on a chair in the corner, then laid one or two documents obtrusively open, on Mr. Gallatin’s desk. Phil watched him with a smile. Tooker was a thoughtful and cautious soul.
But he was reading the nearest document intently when Loring and Leuppold entered. He turned in his chair—rose and bowed.
“You’ve met Mr. Loring, Mr. Gallatin?” said Leuppold.
Loring dropped his chin abruptly the fraction of an inch, peering keenly about, his lips drawn in a thin and unpleasant smile. Phil Gallatin indicated a chair at one end of the table, into which Loring stiffly sat, with one arm on the table, his bull-neck thrust forward, peering steadily at the younger man, watching every movement, studying his face as though trying by the intentness of his gaze to solve the question as to whether this curiously inconsistent young man was a menace or merely a nuisance.
Gallatin laid some papers upon the table, took some others from Tooker and moved his desk chair to the table. If he felt Loring’s scrutiny, his calm demeanor gave no sign of it, for after a few commonplaces he began addressing his remarks directly to Mr. Leuppold’s client.
“I don’t propose to take up a great deal of your time, gentlemen,” he began, “and I think I can state my position in a very few moments.” He took out his watch and looked at it. “About twenty minutes, I think. The facts, as you both know, are these: John Sanborn, representing the minority stockholders of the Sanborn Mining Company, filed an injunction against the President and Board of Directors of the Sanborn Mining Company to prevent the sale of its properties and interests to the Pequot Coal Company. This injunction was lost in the Supreme Court and was appealed to the Appellate Court, when the case came into my hands. That appeal is pending. That is a correct statement, is it not?”
“It is,” said Leuppold blandly, while Loring nodded his head.