Jane Cable | Page 6

constructed on principles not generally accredited to nature as it applies
to men. When erect, his body swayed as if it were a stubborn reed
determined to maintain its dignity in the face of the wind; he did not
walk, he glided. His long square chin, rarely clean-shaven, protruded
far beyond its natural orbit; indeed, the attitude of the chin gave one an
insight to the greedy character of the man. At first glance, one felt that
Droom was reaching forth with his lower jaw to give greeting with his
teeth, instead of his hand.
His neck was long and thin, and his turndown collar was at least two
sizes too large. The nose was hooked and of abnormal length, the tip
coming well down over the short, upper lip and broad mouth. His eyes
were light blue, and so intense that he was never known to blink the
lashes. Topping them were deep, wavering, black eyebrows that met
above the nose, forming an ominous, cloudy line across the base of his
thin, high forehead. The crown of his head, covered by long, scant
strands of black hair, was of the type known as "retreating and
pointed." The forehead ran upward and back from the brows almost to
a point, and down from the pinnacle hung the veil of hair, just as if he
had draped it there with the same care he might have used in placing
his best hat upon a peg. His back was stooped, and the high, narrow
shoulders were hunched forward eagerly. Long arms and ridiculously
thin legs, with big hands and feet, tell the story of his extremities.
When he was on his feet Droom was more than six feet tall; as he sat in
the low-backed, office chair he looked to be less than five feet, over all.
What became of that lank expanse of bone and cuticle when he sat
down was one of the mysteries that not even James Bansemer could
fathom.
The men had been classmates in an obscure law school down in
Pennsylvania. Bansemer was good-looking, forceful and young; while

Droom was distinctly his opposite. Where he came from no one knew
and no one cared. He was past thirty-five when he entered the school-at
least twelve years the senior of Bansemer.
His appearance and attire proclaimed him to be from the country; but
his sophistry, his knowledge of the world and his wonderful insight into
human nature contradicted his looks immeasureably. A conflict or two
convinced his fellow students that he was more than a match for them
in stealth and cunning, if not in dress and deportment.
Elias Droom had not succeeded as a lawyer. He repelled people,
growing more and more bitter against the world as his struggles
became harder. What little money he had accumulated--Heaven alone
knew how: he came by it--dwindled to nothing, and he was in actual
squalor when, later, Bansemer found him in an attic in Baltimore. Even
as he engaged the half-starved wretch to become his confidential clerk
the lawyer shuddered and almost repented of his action.
But Elias Droom was worth his weight in gold to James Bansemer from
that day forth. His employer's sole aim in life was to get rich and
thereby to achieve power. His ambition was laudable, if one accepts the
creed of morals, but his methods were not so praise-worthy. After a
year of two of starvation struggles to get on with the legitimate, he
packed up his scruples and laid them away--temporarily, he said. He
resorted to sharp practice, knavery, and all the forms of legal blackmail;
it was not long before his bank account began to swell. His business
thrived. He was so clever that not one of his shady proceedings reacted.
It is safe to venture that ninety-nine per cent, of the people who were
bilked through his manipulations promised, in the heat of virtuous
wrath, to expose him, but he had learned to smile in security. He knew
that exposure for him meant humiliation for the instigator, and he
continued to rest easy while he worked hard.
"You're getting rich at this sort of thing," observed Droom one day,
after the lawyer had closed a particularly nauseous deal to his own
satisfaction, "but what are you going to do when the tide turns?"
Bansemer, irritated on perceiving that the other was engaged in his
exasperating habit of rubbing his hands together, did not answer, but
merely thundered out: "Will you stop that!"
There was a faint suggestion of the possibility of a transition of the
hands to claws, as Droom abruptly desisted, but smilingly went on:

"Some day, the other shark will get the better of you and you'll have
nothing to fall back on. You've been building on mighty slim
foundations. There