His lifted eye rested upon the engraving of Abraham Lincoln over Mr. Tutt's desk. There was a man! he exclaimed inconsequently; then stopped and ran his transparent, heavily veined old hand over his forehead. Where was I? Let me see. Oh, yes-gold. All those great properties could be bought at one time or another for a song. It needed a pioneer! That's what I was-a pioneer to find the gold where other people couldn't find it. That's not any crime; it's a service to humanity! If only they'd have a little faith-instead of locking you up. The judge never looked up the law about those Great Lakes bonds! If he had he'd have found out I was right! I'd looked it up. I studied law once myself.
I know, said Mr. Tutt, almost moved to tears by the sight of the wreck before him. You practised up state, didn't you?
Yes, responded Doc Barrows eagerly. And in Chicago too. I'm a member of the Cook County bar. I'll tell you something! If the Supreme Court of Illinois hadn't been wrong in its law I'd be the richest man in the world-in the whole world! He grabbed Mr. Tutt by the arm and stared hard into his eyes. Didn't I show you my papers? I own seven feet of water front clean round Lake Michigan all through the city of Chicago I got it for a song from the man who found out the flaw in the original title deed of 1817; he was dying. 'I'll sell my secret to you,' he says, 'because I'm passing on. May it bring you luck!' I looked it all up and it was just as he said. So I got up a corporation-The Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company-and sold bonds to fight my claim in the courts. But all the people who had deeds to my land conspired against me and had me arrested! They sent me to the penitentiary. There's justice for you!
That was too bad! said Mr. Tutt in a soothing voice. But after all what good would all that money have done you?
I don't want money! affirmed Doc plaintively. I've never needed money. I know enough secrets to make me rich a dozen times over. Not money but justice is what I want-my legal rights. But I'm tired of fighting against 'em. They've beaten me! Yes, they've beaten me! I'm going to retire. That's why I came in to see you, Mr. Tutt. I never paid you for your services as my attorney. I'm going away. You see my married daughter lost her husband the other day and she wants me to come up and live with her on the farm to keep her from being lonely. Of course it won't be much like life in Wall Street-but I owe her some duty and I'm getting on-I am, Mr. Tutt, I really am!
He smiled.
And I haven't seen Louisa for three years-my only daughter. I shall enjoy being with her. She was such a dear little girl! I'll tell you another secret-his voice dropped to a whisper-I've found out there's a gold mine on her farm, only she doesn't know it. A rich vein runs right through her cow pasture. We'll be rich! Wouldn't it be fine, Mr. Tutt, to be rich? Then I'm going to pay you in real money for all you've done for me-thousands! But until then I'm going to let you have these-all my securities; my own, you know, every one of them.
He placed the suitcase in front of Mr. Tutt and opened the clasps with his shaking old fingers. It bulged with bonds, and he dumped them forth until they covered the top of the desk.
These are my jewels! he said. There's millions represented here! He lifted one tenderly and held it to the light, fresh as it came from the engraver's press-a thousand dollar first-mortgage bond of The Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company. Look at that! Good as gold-if the courts only knew the law.
He took up a yellow package of valueless obligations upon the top of which an old-fashioned locomotive from whose bell-shaped funnel the smoke poured in picturesque black clouds, dragging behind it a chain of funny little passenger coaches, drove furiously along beside a rushing river through fields rich with corn and wheat amid a border of dollar signs.
The Great Lakes and Canadian Southern, he crooned lovingly. The child of my heart! The district attorney kept all the rest-as evidence, he claimed, but some day you'll see he'll bring an action against the Lake Shore or the New York Central based on these bonds. Yes, sir! They're all right!
He pawed them over, picking out favorites here and there and excitedly extolling the merits of the imaginary properties they represented. There were the repudiated bonds of Southern states and municipalities of railroads upon whose tracks no wheel had ever turned; of factories never built except in Doc Barrows' addled brain; of companies which had defaulted and given stock for their worthless obligations; certificates of oil, mining and land companies; deeds to tracts now covered with sky scrapers in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New York-each and every one of them not worth the paper they were printed on except to some crook who dealt in high finance. But they were exquisitely engraved, quite lovely to look at, and Doc Barrows gloated upon them with scintillating eyes.
Ain't they beauties? he sighed. Some day-yes sir!-some day they'll be worth real money. I paid it for some of 'em. But they're yours-all yours.