He rarely spoke except to a purpose, and his manners were quiet, almost furtive. He had thus early in his career gained a nickname that was peculiarly significant in Wall Street. He was known as The Weasel.
His whole makeup, physical and mental, was curiously complex—a mixture of sobriety and greed, piety and cruelty, tenderness and indomitable will, simplicity of tastes with boundless ambition.
His friendship for Stuart and his deference to him personally and socially dated from their boyhood in North Carolina—and particularly from an incident which occurred in their college days. Bivens's father had been a notorious coward in the Confederate army and had at last deserted the service. A number of very funny stories about his actions in battle had become current everywhere. On Bivens's arrival at college, a particularly green freshman, Stuart had discovered a group of his classmates hazing him. They had forced the coward's son to mount a box and repeat to the crowd the funny stories about the "valour" of his father. The boy, scared half out of his wits, stood stammering and perspiring and choking with shame as he tried to obey his tormentors.
Stuart protested vigorously, and a fight ensued in which he was compelled to thrash the ring-leader and rescue the victim by force of arms. From that day Stuart was Bivens's beau-ideal of a gentleman. He had tolerated rather than enjoyed this friendship, but it was so genuine he couldn't ignore the little dark-eyed taciturn fellow who was destined to play so tremendous a rôle in his future life.
Bivens sat patiently waiting for the young lawyer, his black eyes gazing dreamily over the roofs of the houses. He was smoking a huge black cigar. He was always smoking. The brighter his eyes gleamed the harder he smoked until the fire-tipped tobacco seemed a spark from smouldering volcanoes somewhere below. The one overwhelming impression which Bivens's personality first gave was that he was made out of tobacco. His fingers were stained with nicotine, and his teeth yellow from it. He had smoked so fast and furiously the room was soon fog-bound. The boy looked up from his paper with a gasp and hastened inside to see if he could get rid of his obnoxious presence. In a moment he ushered out the client and showed Bivens into the office.
He shook hands quietly and took a seat beside Stuart's desk.
"Well?" said the lawyer at length.
"I've come to make you an important proposition, Jim," Bivens began slowly, while his restless eyes looked up at the ceiling, and he pulled at the point of his beard. "We need another attorney. The business of the company is increasing so rapidly our force can't handle it. I need a big man close to me. If you'll take the place I'll give you a salary that will ultimately be as big as the President gets in the White House. Twenty thousand to start with."
Stuart looked at his visitor curiously.
"Why do you want me, Cal? There are thousands of lawyers here who would jump at the chance. Many of them are better equipped for such work than I am."