In short, for the better part of a week Judge Priest was a celebrity, holding the limelight to the virtual exclusion of grand opera stars, favorite sons, white hopes, debutantes and contributing editors of the Outlook Magazine. And on the fourth day the judge, sitting in the privacy of his chamber and contemplating his sudden prominence, had an idea—and this idea was the answer to a question he had been asking himself many times since he left home. He spent half an hour and seventy cents telephoning to various newspaper offices. When finally he hung up the receiver and wriggled into his caped overcoat a benevolent smile illumined his broad, pink face. The smile still lingered there as he climbed into a cab at the curb and gave the driver a certain Wall Street address, which was the address ci one J. Hayden Witherbee.
J. Hayden Witherbee, composing the firm of Witherbee & Company, bankers, had a cozy flytrap or office suite in one of the tallest and most ornate of the office buildings or spider-webs in the downtown financial district. This location was but a natural one, seeing that Mr. J. Hayden Witherbee's interests were widely scattered and diversified, including as they did the formation and construction—on paper and with paper—of trolley lines; the floating of various enterprises, which floated the more easily by reason of the fact that water was their native element; and the sale of what are known in the West as holes in the ground and in the East as permanent mining investments. He rode to and from business in a splendid touring car trained to stop automatically at at least three cafés on the way up town of an evening; and he had in his employ a competent staff, including a grayish gentle-man of a grim and stolid aspect, named Betts.
Being a man of affairs, and many of them, Mr. Witherbee had but small time for general newspaper reading, save and except only the market quotations, the baseball scores in season and the notices of new shows for tired business men, though keeping a weather eye ever out for stories touching on the pernicious activities of the Federal Grand Jury, with its indictments and summonses and warrants, and of the United States Post-Office Department, with its nasty habit of issuing fraud orders and tying up valuable personal mail. Nevertheless, on a certain wintry afternoon about two o'clock or half-past two, when his office boy brought to him a small card, engraved—no, not engraved; printed—smudgily printed with the name of William Pitman Priest and the general address of Kentucky, the sight of the card seemed to awaken within him certain amusing stories which had lately fallen under his attention in the printed columns; and, since he never overlooked any bets—even the small ones—he told the boy to show the gentleman in.
The reader, I take it, being already acquainted with the widely varying conversational characteristics of Judge Priest and Mr. J. Hayden Witherbee, it would be but a waste of space and time for me to undertake to describe in detail the manner of their meeting on this occasion. Suffice it to say that the judge was shown into Mr. J. Hayden Witherbee's private office; that he introduced himself, shook hands with Mr. Witherbee, and in response to an invitation took a seat; after which he complimented Mr. Witherbee upon the luxury and good taste of his surroundings, and remarked that it was seasonable weather, considering the Northern climate and the time of the year. And then, being requested to state the nature of his business, he told Mr. Witherbee he had called in the hope of interesting him in an industrial property located in the South. It was at this juncture that Mr. Witherbee pressed a large, dark cigar upon his visitor.
“Yes,” said Mr. Witherbee, “we have been operating somewhat extensively in the South of late, and we are always on the lookout for desirable properties of almost any character. Er—where is this particular property you speak of located and what is its nature?”
When Judge Priest named the town Mr. Witherbee gave a perceptible start, and when Judge Priest followed up this disclosure by stating that the property in question was a gasworks plant which he, holding power of attorney and full authority to act, desired to sell to Mr. Witherbee, complete with equipment, accounts, franchise and good will, Mr. Witherbee showed a degree of heat and excitement entirely out of keeping with the calmness and deliberation of Judge Priest's remarks. He asked Judge Priest what he—the judge—took him—Witherbee—for anyhow? Judge Priest, still speaking slowly and choosing his words with care, then told him—and that only seemed to add to Mr. Witherbee's state of warmth. However, Judge Priest drawled right on.
“Yes, suh,” he continued placidly, “accordin' to the best of my knowledge and belief, you are in the business of buyin' and sellin' such things as gasworks, and so I've come to you to sell you this here one. You have personal knowledge of the plant, I believe, havin' been on the ground recently.”
“Say,” demanded Mr. Witherbee with a forced grin—a grin that would have reminded you of a man drawing a knife—“say, what do you think you're trying to slip over on me? I did go to your measly little one-horse town and I spent more than a week there; and I did look over your broken-down little old gashouse, and I concluded that I didn't want it; and then I came away. That's the kind of a man I am—when I'm through with a thing I'm through with it! Huh! What would I do with those gasworks if I bought 'em?”
“That, suh, is a most pertinent point,” said Judge Priest, “and I'm glad you brought it up early. In case, after buyin' this property, you do not seem to care greatly for it, I am empowered to buy it back from you at a suitable figure. For example, I am willin' to sell it to you for sixty thousand dollars; and then, providin' you should want to sell it back to me, I stand prepared to take it off your hands at twenty-six thousand five hundred. I name those figures, suh, because those are the figures that were lately employed in connection with the proposition.”