“I? I couldn't!” said Stephen. .
“Of course you couldn't, and so your aunt did the trick.” He began to fill his pipe, and as he worked the tobacco down with his forefinger, he described the interview.
“But what did Uncle Jake say?” asked Stephen impatiently. He found that after all he had counted much on some explanation the lawyer would have it in his power to make.
“Say? Nothing,” snorted Wade. “I didn't expect he'd say anything. What would he say?”
“But he denied it?”
“Not in the way you mean, Steve. But of course he declined to accept the money your aunt tendered him.”
“What will you do now?”
“Get it to trial as quick as ever I can. Enough time's been wasted already.”
Stephen was silent. He rested his head in his hands; he was sick at heart. The idea that the hideous thing had been given publicity was nauseating to him. Wade smiled at him genially through a cloud of tobacco smoke.
“I won't ask you to join me in three cheers, Steve, and out of respect for your feeling in the matter I won't indulge in them myself; but say, don't look so mournful—cheer up! I don't expect you to enter into the spirit of my joy, but do you know there's a fellow named Ben Wade who's given five priceless years of his life to the odd jobs of legal practice, runty little cases, where if he snaked out a five or ten dollar fee, it kept him and his girl up half the night building Queen Anne cottages! Well, from now on Ben Wade will have a free field for his genius; the day of odd jobs is over for him—he's come into his own! Of course I don't expect you to take much interest in the short and simple annals of the poor, for I guess you never sat up many nights with your best girl building Queen Annes with ten-dollar bills; but if you had ever known all the things a fellow can do with a ten-dollar bill, the torrent of hope that a greasy trifle like that, earned, can pour into his soul; you'd understand why I'd like to stick my head out of that window and give three cheers for myself, and your aunt—yes, and for old Benson, too—God bless him! I mustn't forget him, for he's done his part in promoting the welfare of a fellow being!”