“That’s all we wanted,” said the lawyer at last when he found his tongue. “Now you’ve got to come back when it’s time to make the flight and offer to take charge. Have a witness with you, and if they refuse to accept your services, you have a plain case. I’ll arrange with Judge Clark to issue a writ this afternoon. As for this watchman, we’ll have him locked up before night and discharged to boot.”
“How about the kid?” asked the expert.
Attorney Stockwell shook his head ominously.
“I’ll attend to him all right. Never fear as to that.”
Which meant that he was already sorry that he had ordered Bud away from his house.
Attorney Stockwell represented a type of lawyers found in all small towns. Without reputation for pronounced legal ability, he undertook all cases that came his way and what he had told Bud was true; often enough he gave his services for ten dollars a day when he could get no more. Therefore, when T. Glenn Dare had called on him that morning and offered him fifty dollars to protect his interests in the aeroplane dispute, the lawyer forgot local pride—even overlooked the fact that he might be called on to take action against his fellow fair directors.
If he had any compunctions on this score, they disappeared when he learned that President Elder had induced his foster son to accept service once more without recompense.
“Your redress is very clear,” Attorney Stockwell told Mr. Dare when the latter explained all the facts in the case. “The contract of sale calls for one thousand eight hundred dollars for the aeroplane, but it also stipulates that you are to be employed for six days at fifty dollars a day. The cost of the machine, is, therefore, two thousand one hundred dollars. So far, I understand, nothing has been paid on the machine.”