Page:American Boy's Life of William McKinley.djvu/146

116 him sitting at a desk piled high with books and his head bound up in a wet towel.

"Don't you ever expect to go home and go to bed, young man?" questioned the lawyer.

"Yes, sir, after I have mastered this insurance case."

"Do you expect to master it before morning?"

"I'm going to try," was the quiet answer.

The judge looked at the papers and books in front of his student, and his brow began to knit. Gradually he became as absorbed as was McKinley. Together they read on for fully half an hour. Then the judge placed his finger on a certain passage in the written pages.

"What do you think of that?" he questioned severely.

"I can't make it out. It doesn't seem right," said McKinley.

"And it is not right," thundered the judge. "That decision will never stand." And taking up the papers he tore them in two. Two years after, the decision was reversed by a higher court.