Hailsworth was the capital letter o' that outfit, an' I was glad o' the chance to see him, 'cause the' was some several changes I wanted to make in the porterin' department. I follered the floor boss upstairs an' back to a private room, where a little wizen-faced old man sat up an' looked at me over his spectacles. "I understand you found some money?" sez he.
"I did," sez I. "Do you know who lost it?"
"Well, no, not yet," sez he; "but of course you understand that any money that is found in this building belongs to the firm, unless its rightful owner claims it."
"Well that's a new wrinkle" sez I. "Why don't it belong to me?"
"'Cause you have hired your time to me, an' whatever you find here you find in my time, so it's mine. This is the law, an' I am very busy. Just hand it over at once."
"That ain't right," sez I, "an' I don't intend to hand over a nickle of it."
"Then we'll have to arrest you," sez he. I put my hand down to my leg, but both my guns was rolled up in my blankets. "I'm goin' out to see a lawyer," sez I, thinkin' that would be more business-like than to tell him I 'd blow the top of his head off. The' was lots more things I wanted to tell him, but it took most o' my strength to manage my self-control; an' I allus like to have good footin' when I make my spring. I didn't feel at home, either, an' that's a heap. It kind o' got on my nerves to see that little shrimp squattin' there behind his spectacles an' tellin' me what I had to do, the same as if I was a hoss. I turned on my heel and strode out o' that store head up an' I was some glad that Hammy had taught me what strodin' was, 'cause the rest o' the gang opened up a path you could 'a' drove a street-sprinkler through.
I didn't like the looks o' that lawyer, he reminded me of a rat. I don't care much for the law anyhow. All the law is fit for is to take care o' the weak an' the ignorant—an' they can't afford it. I've noticed that much, the little time I've been penned up in cities. This lawyer o' mine had full command o' the kind o' talk that bottles up a man an' keeps him from expressin' himself. He said I had a good case an' that he would save me my findin's, but that I had to give him half of it for his services—in advance. If you don't tell a lawyer the truth he can't fight your case; an' if you do you put yourself in his power. Course I don't claim to be authority, but I just actually don't like the law.
When I came away from the law office, a nice friendly feller got into conversation with me, an' after I'd bought him a couple o' drinks, he grew confidential an' told me his troubles. He was owner of a whole block of buildin's an' a lot o' residence houses, but he was stone broke. He had had a quarrel with the banks, an' couldn't raise a penny, an' he had lost ten thousand dollars the night before, gamblin'. He said it would take forty dollars for him to go to Los Angeles, where he had friends who would lend him any amount. Otherwise they would foreclose the little mortgage he had on the business block.
He talked along until I couldn't stand it any longer, so I give him the forty on the condition that I was to be his collecting agent at wages of two hundred a month, as soon as he got back from Los Angeles.