"It happened a good many years ago at a time when I was only a young fellow fresh from college, very proud of my Plumb. B., and inclined to think that I knew it all. I had done a little monograph on Choked Feed in the Blow Torch, which had attracted attention, and I suppose that altogether I was about as conceited a young puppy as one would find in the profession. I should mention that at this time I was not married, but had set up a modest apartment of my own with a consulting-room and a single manservant. Naturally I could not afford the services of a solderist or a gassist and did everything for myself, though Simmons, my man, could at a pinch be utilized to tear down plaster and break furniture."
Thornton paused to take a sip of raspberry vinegar and went on:
"Well, then. I had come home to dinner particularly tired after a long day. I had sat in an attic the greater part of the afternoon (a case of top story valvular trouble) and had had to sit in a cramped position which practically forbade sleep. I was feeling, therefore, none too well pleased, when a little while after dinner the bell rang and Simmons brought word to the library that there was a client in the consulting-room. I reminded the fellow that I could not possibly consider a case at such an advanced hour unless I were paid emergency overtime wages with time and a half during the day of recovery."
"One moment," interrupted the outside member. "You don't mention compensation for mental shock. Do you not draw that here?"
"We do now" explained Thornton, "but the time of which I speak is some years ago and we still got nothing for mental shock, nor disturbance of equilibrium. Nowadays, of course, one would insist on a substantial retainer in advance.
"Well, to continue. Simmons, to my surprise, told me that he had already informed the client of this fact, and that the answer had only been a plea that the case was too urgent to admit of delay. He also supplied the further information that the client was a young lady. I am afraid," added Thornton, looking round his audience with a sympathetic smile, "that Simmons (I had got him from Harvard and he had not yet quite learned his place) even said something about her being strikingly handsome."
A general laugh greeted Thornton's announcement.
"After all," said Fortescue, "I never could see why an Ice Man should be supposed to have a monopoly on gallantry."
"Oh, I don't know," said Thornton. "For my part—I say it without affectation—the moment I am called in professionally, women, as women, cease to exist for me. I can stand beside them in the kitchen and explain to them the feed tap of a kitchen range without feeling them to be anything other than simply clients. And for the most part, I think, they reciprocate that attention. There are women, of course, who will call a man in with motives—but that's another story. I must get back to what I was saying.
"On entering the consulting-room I saw at once that Simmons had exaggerated nothing in describing my young client as beautiful. I have seldom, even among our own class, seen a more strikingly handsome girl. She was dressed in a very plain and simple fashion which showed me at once that she belonged merely to the capitalist class. I am, as I think you know, something of an observer, and my eye at once noted the absence of heavy gold ear-rings and wrist-bangles. The blue feathers at the side of her hat were none of them more than six inches long, and the buttons on her jacket were so inconspicuous that one would hardly notice them. In short, while her dress was no doubt good and serviceable, there was an absence of chic, a lack of noise about it, that told at once the tale of narrow circumstances.