I bowed.
"I have come to see if you will undertake that young fool's defense. As his guardian, I suppose it devolves on me to see that he is provided with a lawyer."
I am not in criminal practice, and ordinarily I should not have cared for such a retainer, but in this instance I did not hesitate for a moment.
"I shall be very glad to do so."
"That's all right, then. You look after things, and let me know if there is anything I have to know. I am engaged in some important researches, and it is most inconvenient to have interruptions, but of course in such a case I shall have to put up with it."
"Possibly you may even find them interesting," I said, in amaze. He took me up at once.
"Events are not interesting, Mr. Hilton. They are merely happenings,--unrelated and unintelligent. Take this case. Gene dislikes Barker. That is interesting in a measure, although it is rather obvious. But he goes and shoots him, and what is there interesting in that? It is the mere explosive event. Besides, Gene was a fool to go and tell the police about it. That was hardly--gentlemanly."
"I suppose it weighed on his conscience."
"Conscience,--fiddlededee! What is conscience? Merely your idea of what someone else would think about you if he knew. If you are satisfied yourself that your actions are justified, what have you to do with the opinions of other people or the upbraidings of conscience? If it was right to kill Barker, it was sheer foolishness to tell."
"Do you think it is ever right to kill?"