Old Ebenezer | Page 4

we all," Lyman replied, "and nearly always on account of money. I wish there wasn't a penny in the world."
"Sometimes there isn't, so far as I am concerned," Caruthers said. "No, sir," he added, "they keep money out of my way. And I want to tell you that I'm not a bad business man, either. But I'm close to forty and haven't laid up a cent, and nothing that I can ever say in praise of myself can overcome that fact. I don't see, however, why you should be a failure. You have generations of money makers behind you."
"Yes, hundreds of years behind me," said Lyman. "And the vein was worked out long before I came on. There is no failure more complete than the one that comes along in the wake of success. But I am not going to remain a failure. I'll strike it after awhile."
"I think you have struck it now," replied Caruthers. "Business will liven up in a day or two. When a thing touches bottom it can't go any further down, but it may rise."
"Yes," said Lyman, "unless it continues to lie there."
"But we must stir it up," Caruthers declared. "We've got the enterprise all right--we've got the will, and now all that's needed is something for us to take hold of."
"That's about so," Lyman agreed. "Unless a man has something to lift, he can never find out how strong he is."
And thus they talked until after the midnight hour, until Caruthers, his feet on a table, his head thrown back, his pipe between the fingers of his limp hand, fell asleep. Lyman sat there, more thoughtful, now that he felt alone. At the threshold of a new venture, we look back upon the hopes that led us into other undertakings, and upon many a failure we bestow a look of tender but half reproachful forgiveness. The trials and the final success of other men make us strong. And with his mild eyes set in review, Lyman thought that never before had he found himself so well seasoned, so well prepared to do something. He listened to the grinding of the press, to the midnight noises about the public square, the town muttering in its sleep. "I am advancing" he mused, looking about him. "I was not content to skimp along in New England, nor to buy cross-ties, nor to singe the pin feathers off a chicken at night, nor to worry with the feeble machinery of a dull schoolboy's head. And I will not be content merely to sit here and wait for clients that may never come. I am going to do something."
CHAPTER III.
THE TIMELY ORACLE.
A year passed by. Caruthers dozed with his cob pipe between the fingers of his limp hand, waiting for clients whose step was not heard upon the stairs. But the office had not been wholly without business. Once a man called to seek advice, which was given, free, as an advertisement for more work from his neighborhood, and once Lyman had defended a man charged with the theft of a sheep. The mutton was found in the fellow's closet and the hide of the animal was discovered under his bed; and with such evidence against him it was not expected that a lawyer could do much, so, when the prisoner was sentenced to the penitentiary, Caruthers congratulated his partner with the remark: "That was all right. We can't expect to win every time. But we were not so badly defeated; you got him off with one year, and he deserved two. To cut a thief's sentence in two ought to help us."
"Among the other thieves," Lyman suggested.
"Oh, yes," Caruthers spoke up cheerfully. "A lawyer's success depends largely upon his reputation among thieves."
"Or at least among the men who intend to stretch the law. Let me see; we have been in business together just one year, and our books balance with a most graceful precision. We are systematic, anyway."
"Yes," Caruthers replied, letting his pipe fall to the floor, "system is my motto. No business, properly systematized, is often better than some business in a tangle."
Warren, the editor, appeared at the door. "Are you busy?" he asked.
"Well, we are not in what you might call a rush," Lyman answered. "Are you busy?" he inquired, with a twinkle in his eye.
Before answering, Warren stepped into the room and sat down with a distressful sigh. "I am more than that," he said, dejectedly. "I am in hot water, trying to swim with one hand."
"What's the trouble?"
"Oh, a sort of summer, fall, spring and winter complaint." He took out a note book, turned over the leaves, returned it to his pocket and said: "I lack just sixty-five, this time."
"Dollars?" Lyman asked.
Warren gave him a quick, reproachful look. "Now, Judge, what airs have I