CHAPTER XXV
COPELAND’S UNKNOWN BENEFACTOR
Eaton tore March from his office calendar, crumpled it in his hand, and glanced out of the window as though expecting to see April’s heralds dancing over the roofs below. It was nearing five o’clock and his big desk was swept clear of the day’s encumbrances. He paced the floor slowly, his gaze ranging the walls with their ranks of file-cases. A particular box in the “C” section seemed to exert a spell upon him. He glanced at it several times, then opened a drawer in his desk, peered in, and absently closed it. He was waiting for Copeland, and as usual, when he expected a visitor, was planning the interview to its minutest details.
Since the reorganization of the Copeland-Farley Company he had been seeing much of Copeland. The winter had wrought changes in Billy—changes that at first provoked cynical comment from persons who had no faith in his reformation. But people were now beginning to say that they always knew Billy had the right stuff in him. Even the fact—which was pretty generally known—that Billy had narrowly escaped disaster didn’t matter particularly. Such fellows were always lucky. If the decision in the Kinney patent case hadn’t come just when it did, he would have been down and out; but it had come. Yes; he was a lucky devil.
Eaton was breathing easier now, as days passed and Copeland seemed to have settled into a sober and industrious routine. He was even giving time to broadening the scope and effectiveness of the Bigger Business Club, and had accepted a place on the municipal reform committee of the Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Jeremiah A. Amidon pointed to his boss with pride. Jerry had risen to the dignity of a standing invitation to Sunday evening tea at Mrs. Copeland’s and was the proudest and happiest of Jerries.
Three slight snarls of a desk buzzer, marked, to the attentive ear, by an interval between the second and third, spelled Copeland in the office code. Eaton raised his arm and pressed a button attached to a swinging cord over his desk. By this system acceptable visitors could be announced by the girl in the reception room and disposed of at long range. If Eaton didn’t want to be bothered, he made no response. This was only one of his many devices for safeguarding his time. When he was studying a case, he ignored the presence of his most remunerative clients on the theory that they were unlikely to have anything of importance to impart. It was a fair assumption that before he undertook any case he extracted from the client’s head and stored in a file-box all the information of which that particular client was possessed. Clients resented this treatment, but as Eaton was admittedly the best patent lawyer in three States, they were obliged to humor him.
Copeland entered with a quick, springy step. Jerry had persuaded him to spend an hour three times a week at Gaylord’s, and as a result Copeland was in prime condition. He nodded to Eaton and sat down in the chair the lawyer pushed toward him.
“The state of your desk fills me with envy; I never get mine as clean as that. If I turn my back, somebody throws something on it.”
“Oh, my system has its disadvantages; strangers coming in think I haven’t any business. You wanted to speak about those notes?”
“Yes; they’re due to-morrow and I’m ready to take them up. Our merchandise bills are cleaned up, and my personal obligations are all taken care of. Our credit’s A 1. The White River National is taking good care of us and they’re not as fussy as the Western was.”
“The Western isn’t a bank,” remarked Eaton; “it’s a pawnshop with a third-degree attachment. About the notes,” he continued, tipping himself back in his chair and crossing his slender legs, “you don’t have to pay them to-morrow. They can be carried longer—indefinitely. It’s just as you say, however. It might be best to accept an extension of three or six months.”