Powers & Hands was the firm which attended to all the Sentinel’s legal business. They were one of the most prominent law firms in New York, and saved the Sentinel thousands of dollars annually by squelching incipient libel suits brought against that newspaper, or successfully fighting in the courts those which could not be squelched.
Mr. Horatio Hands, the younger of the partners, was not much to look at. He was an insignificant little chap, with a red beard and a thin voice that was almost falsetto. He was not much of a success at addressing a jury—his partner, big Alexander Powers, attended to that part of the work—but when it came to getting a client off on a legal technicality, or winning a case by picking flaws in a law, there wasn’t another lawyer in New York who was his equal. That was why Tom Paxton had chosen him to go to the rescue of the Camera Chap, instead of calling for the services of his more oratorical but less keen-witted partner.[Pg 39]
Mr. Hands came over to the Sentinel office right away. “Well, Mr. Paxton?” he squeaked, as he entered the managing editor’s sanctum. “What unfortunate citizen has the Sentinel been traducing this time?”
“It isn’t a libel suit, Mr. Hands,” Paxton explained, with a smile. “It’s one of the young men of our staff. He’s got into a little trouble in Oldham—a small town in the vicinity of the Catskills. I have just received word of his plight, and would appreciate it very much if you would go out there right away and help him out of this scrape.”
The lawyer frowned. “Only a reporter in a scrape, eh? Couldn’t one of our clerks attend to that just as well? Surely it isn’t necessary for me to go out there personally.”
“Yes, it is,” Paxton declared. “I understand that he’s in a pretty bad fix, and it’s require the best of legal talent to get him out. That is why I have sent for you, Mr. Hands.”
The lawyer bowed in acknowledgment of this compliment, but his frown deepened.
“Well, I’m very busy just now,” he said, “and I shall have to charge you a good fee if it is necessary to give my own time to this case.”
“I don’t care what it costs!” Paxton rejoined vehemently. “When the Camera Chap is in danger of going to jail, the Sentinel doesn’t consider the question of expense. You’ve got to get him out, Mr. Hands, even if you have to take his case all the way up to the United States supreme court.”