“That sort of piffle” was a phrase he had taken over bodily from Eaton’s familiar discourse. So sensitive was he to Eaton’s influence that he imitated, with fair success, the unruffled ease that was second nature to the lawyer. He was also practicing Eaton’s trick of blinking before uttering a sentence, and then letting it slip with a casual, indifferent air. Eaton had used this in the cross-examination of witnesses to good purpose. Amidon had exercised it so constantly in commercial and social conversation that he had to be on guard lest Eaton, whose discernment seemed to him to partake of the supernatural, should catch him at it and detect its spuriousness.
“Won a case somewhat in your line the other day; defended a trade-mark of the Pomona Velvet Complexion Cream, warranted to remove whole constellations of freckles in one night. Seductive label, showing a lovely maiden unfreckling herself before a mirror; bottle of Pomona in her hand. Basely and clumsily imitated by a concern in Kansas that’s been feloniously uttering a Romona Complexion Cream. The only original Pomona girl held the bottle in her right hand; label on Romona nostrum showed it clenched in her left.”
“Hard luck!” said Amidon, deeply interested. “We’ve been pushing that Kansas beautifier—a larger discount for the jobber than the Pomona. Reckon we’ll have to chuck it now. I suppose the judge didn’t know Pomona removes the cuticle—hasn’t the real soothing effect of the Romona.”
“I’ll mention that to the district attorney and he can pass it on to the government inspectors. I’m annoyed by your revelation. Shock to my conscience—defending a company that poisons the young and beautiful of the republic.”
“Now that you know what a swindle you defended, I suppose you’ll turn back your fee—if you’ve got it?”
“Retainer of a thousand dollars,” Eaton replied easily; “it would be immoral to return it, thus increasing the dividends of such an unscrupulous corporation. However, I’ll consider giving half of it to the Children’s Aid Society.”
It was pleasant in any circumstances to sit in Eaton’s presence, to enjoy his confidence; and yet nothing so far disclosed justified Jerry’s relinquishment of the Little Ripple Club dance.
“Which of our noble streams did you follow this trip—the Pan-haunted Wabash or the mighty Ohio, sacred to the muses nine?”
Allusions of this sort, to which Eaton was prone, were Jerry’s despair. He felt that it would be worth subjecting one’s self to the discomforts of a college education to be able to talk like this, easily and naturally. But he was aware that Eaton was driving at something; and while it was the lawyer’s way to lead conversations into blind alleys, he always arrived somewhere and fitted a key into the lock that had been his aim from the start.
“I shook hands with the trade along the Ohio this trip. I can tell you it’s lonesome at night in those river burgs; the folks just sit and wait for the spring flood—and even it fails sometimes. They turn the reel once daily in the movies, and the whole town’s asleep at nine-thirty.”