"That doesn't explain your cryptic statement that it would probably cost you a hundred thousand dollars," she replied. "Still—"
Mr. Tutt turned suddenly upon his heel and held her with an upraised hand, the bony wrist of which was encircled, after an intervening space of some five inches, by a frayed cuff confined with a black onyx button the size of a quarter.
"Behold," he cried in the deep resonant voice that he used in addressing juries at the climax of a peroration, "the integuments of my personality—the ancient habiliments of an honorable profession—the panoply of the legal warrior. Here, my corslet"—he touched his dingy waistcoat with his left hand; "my greaves"—he brushed the baggy legs of his pantaloons; "my halberd"—he raised his old mahogany cane with its knot of yellow ivory; "my casque"—he indicated his ruffled stove-pipe "Arrayed in these I am Mr. Ephraim Tutt, attorney and counselor at law—the senior partner in Tutt & Tutt—a respected member of the bar duly accredited and authorized to practise before the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the Court of Appeals, the District Court of the United States, the Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court of Claims—"
"—the Police Court and the Coroner's Court," concluded Miss Wiggin, making him a mock curtsy.
"Without these indicia of my profession and my individuality I should be like David without his sling or Samson without his hair. I should be merely Tutt, a criminal lawyer—one of a multitude—regarded perhaps as a shyster. But in these robes of my high office I am a high priest of the law; just as you, my dear girl, are one of its many devoted and worthy priestesses. Can you imagine me going to court in a bowler hat or arguing to the jury in a cutaway coat or bobtail business suit? Can you picture Ephraim Tutt with his hair cut short or in an Ascot tie, any more than you can envisage him in riding breeches or wearing lilacs? No! There is but one Mr. Tutt, and these are his only garments. He who steals my hat may steal trash, but without it I should be like a disembodied spirit unable to return to my earthly dwelling-place.
"A paltry hundred thousand?
"Nay, without my hat—my helmet!—I should be valueless to myself and everybody else; so estimate my worth and you can assay the value of my hat. What am I worth in your opinion?"
And then Miss Wiggin, having glanced cautiously if quickly round, made a most astonishing declaration.
"Just about a million times more than anybody else in the whole world, you old dear!" she whispered and rising upon her toes she kissed his wrinkled cheek.
"Dear me! You really mustn't do that!" gasped Mr. Tutt.
"Well," she retorted, "you can discharge me if you like. But first sit down, light a cigar and let me tell you something."
Mr. Tutt did as he was bid, chuckling.
"Well," said Miss Wiggin, "there is such a thing as Horse's Neck Extension after all!"
"Um—you don't say?" he answered, struggling to make his stogy draw.
"And it has an office with about a hundred other corporations of various kinds—most of them with names that sound like the zoo—Yellow Wildcat, Jumping Leapfrog, and that sort of thing. It seems Horse's Neck is played out and they are going to reorganize it—"
"Who are?" demanded her employer, suddenly sitting erect.
"Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck."
"The dickens they are!" he ejaculated. "That bunch of pirates? Not if I know it!"
"Why not?"
"Reorganize! Reorganize? Reorganization is my middle name!" cried Mr. Tutt. "So Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck are going to reorganize something, are they? Let 'em try! Not so long as I've got my hat!"
"This is all very enigmatical to me," replied Miss Wiggin. "But then, I'm only a woman. Aren't they all right? Why shouldn't they reorganize a mine if it's exhausted?"
"If it's exhausted why do they want to reorganize it?" he demanded, climbing to his feet. "Let me tell you something, Minerva! All my life I've been fighting against tyranny—the tyranny of the law, the tyranny of power, the tyranny of money."
He drew fiercely on his stogy, which being desiccated flared like a Roman candle.
"You don't need to tell me what this plan of reorganization is; because they wouldn't propose one unless it was going to benefit them in some way, and the only way it can be made to benefit them is at the expense of the other stockholders. Quod erat demonstrandum."
Mr. Tutt seemed to have become distended somehow and to have spread over the entire wall surface of his office like the genie which the fisherman innocently permitted to escape from the bottle.
"There isn't one reorganization scheme in a hundred that isn't crooked somewhere."
"According to that, if a business is unsuccessful it ought to be allowed to go to pot for fear that somebody might make a profit in putting it on its feet," she countered. "I think you're a violent, irascible, prejudiced old man!"
"All the same," he retorted, "show me a reorganization scheme and I'll show you a flimflam! What's this one? Bet you anything you like it's as crooked as a ram's horn. I don't have to hear about it. Don't want to read the plan. But I'll bust it—higher than Hades. See if I don't!"
He spat the remaining filaments of his stogy from the window and fished out another.
"How do we come into it, anyhow?" he demanded.
"Doctor—I mean Mister Barrows," replied Miss Wiggin.
"Oh, yes. Of course. Well, you send for him to come down here and sign the papers."
"What papers?"
"The complaint and order to show cause."
"But there isn't any."
"There will be, all right, by the time he gets here."
Miss Wiggin looked first puzzled and then pained.
"I don't understand," she said rather stiffly. "Do you mean that the firm of Tutt & Tutt is going to engage in the enterprise of trying to break up a plan of reorganization without knowing what it is? Won't you lay us all open to the accusation of being strikers?"
Mr. Tutt's ordinarily brown complexion became slightly tinged with purple.
"Let the court decide!" he cried hotly. "You say Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck are proposing to reorganize a mining company? You admit we hold some of the stock? Well—as the natural-born and perennial champion of the outraged minority—I'm going to attack it, and bust it, and raise heck with it—on general principles. I'm going to throw that damned old hat of mine into the ring, my child, and play hell with everything."
And with a cluck Mr. Tutt leaned over, produced a dingy bottle wrapped in a coat of many colors and poured himself out a glass of malt extract.
When Mr. Greenbaum was summoned to the telephone and informed by Mr. Elderberry in disgruntled tones that somebody had just served upon him an order to show cause why the proposed reorganization of Horse's Neck should not be set aside and enjoined, he not only became instantly annoyed but highly excited.
"What!" he almost screamed.
"I'll read it to you, if you don't believe it!" said Mr. Elderberry.
"'United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Edward V. Barrows, Complainant against Horse's Neck Extension Mining Company, Defendant.
"'Upon the subpoena herein and the complaint duly verified the nineteenth day of February, 1919, and the affidavit of Ephraim Tutt and—'"
"Who in hell is Tutt?" shouted Greenbaum, interrupting.
"I don't know," retorted Elderberry; "or Barrows either."
"Well, skip all the legal rot and get to the point," directed Greenbaum.
"'Ordered—ordered, that the defendant, Horse's Neck Extension Mining