“We have only done what straight business men would do Mr. Converse,” declared Owen.
“We had a chance to go to the high court with a case that would open up the whole rottenness in this state before we got done fighting, and you have sold out!”
“Good day. We don't have to listen to such talk,” said Erskine.
“You wait one minute.” The lawyer pulled open a drawer and found his check-book. He wrote hastily and tore out the check. “Here's that retaining-fee you paid me. Now get out of my office.”
He drove them ahead of him to the door, shouting insistent commands that they hurry.
When they were gone he gazed about at his astonished associates, his partners, and his clerks.
“I apologize most humbly ladies and gentlemen, for making such a disturbance. I—I hardly seem to be myself to-day.”
He went to his desk and sat down and stared up at the portrait of War-Governor Converse for a long time. At last he thumped his fist on his desk and shook his head.
“No,” he declared, as if the portrait had been asking him a question and pressing him for a reply, “I can't do it. I could have gone into the courts and fought them as an attorney. I could have maintained my self-respect. But not in politics—no—no! It's too much of a mess in these days.”
But he pushed aside the papers which related to the affairs of the big corporations for which he was counsel and kept on studying the reports which his clerks had secured for him—such statements on health and financial affairs as they were able to dig up.