We had risen. Mr. Scherer laid a hand on my arm.
“No, no, I do not forget him. He will not permit me to forget him.”
A remark, I thought, that betrayed some insight into my character... Mr. Watling called for pen and paper and made then and there a draft of the proposed bill, for no time was to be lost. It was dark when we left the Club, and I recall the elation I felt and strove to conceal as I accompanied my chief back to the office. The stenographers and clerks were gone; alone in the library we got down the statutes and set to work to perfect the bill from the rough draft, on which Mr. Fowndes had written his suggestions. I felt that a complete yet subtle change had come over my relationship with Mr. Watling.
In the midst of our labours he asked me to call up the attorney for the Railroad. Mr. Gorse was still at his office.
“Hello! Is that you, Miller?” Mr. Watling said. “This is Wading. When can I see you for a few minutes this evening? Yes, I am leaving for Washington at nine thirty. Eight o'clock. All right, I'll be there.”
It was almost eight before he got the draft finished to his satisfaction, and I had picked it out on the typewriter. As I handed it to him, my chief held it a moment, gazing at me with an odd smile.
“You seem to have acquired a good deal of useful knowledge, here and there, Hugh,” he observed.
“I've tried to keep my eyes open, Mr. Watling,” I said.
“Well,” he said, “there are a great many things a young man practising law in these days has to learn for himself. And if I hadn't given you credit for some cleverness, I shouldn't have wanted you here. There's only one way to look at—at these matters we have been discussing, my boy, that's the common-sense way, and if a man doesn't get that point of view by himself, nobody can teach it to him. I needn't enlarge upon it.”
“No, sir,” I said.