Page:The celebrity, an episode (1919) Churchill.djvu/23

10 into his little eyes, “but I guess you ain’t had too many cases to object to a big one.”

“Did you come here to tell me that?” I asked.

He looked me over queerly, and evidently decided that I meant no effrontery.

“I came here to get your opinion,” he said, holding up a swollen hand, “but I want to tell you first that I ought to get ten thousand, not a cent less. That scoundrelly young upstart—”

“If you want my opinion,” I replied, trying to speak slowly, “it is that Mr. Farrar ought to get ten thousand dollars. And I think that would be only a moderate reward.”

I did not feel equal to pushing him into the street, as Farrar had done, and I have now but a vague notion of what he said and how he got there. But I remember that half an hour afterwards a man congratulated me openly in the bank.

That night I found a new friend, although at the time I thought Farrar’s visit to me the accomplishment of a perfunctory courtesy to a man who had refused to take a case against him. It was very characteristic of Farrar not to mention this until he rose to go. About