第32章

_I_ don't like his WAYS.' Then I HAD to do it.There jest wasn't nothin' LEFT--but I wouldn't of done you no harm by it--""You didn't do me any harm, Happy.""I mean your repitation."

"I didn't have one--so nothing in the world could harm it.About your getting some work, now--""I'll listen," said Happy, rather suspiciously.

"You see," Joe went on, growing red, "I need a sort of janitor here--""What fer?" Mr.Fear interrupted, with some shortness.

"To look after the place."

"You mean these two rooms?"

"There's a stairway, too," Joe put forth, quickly.

"It wouldn't be any sinecure, Happy.You'd earn your money; don't be afraid of that!"Mr.Fear straightened up, his burden of embarrassment gone from him, transferred to the other's shoulders.

"There always was a yellow streak in you, Joe,"he said, firmly."You're no good as a liar except when you're jokin'.A lot you need a janitor!

You had no business to pay my fine; you'd ort of let me worked it out.Do you think my eyes ain't good enough to see how much you needed the money, most of all right now when you're tryin' to git started? If I ever take a cent from you, I hope the hand I hold out fer it 'll rot off.""Now don't say that, Happy.""I don't want a job, nohow!" said Mr.Fear, going to the door; "I don't want to work.There's plenty ways fer me to git along without that.But I've said what I come here to say, and I'll say one thing more.Don't you worry about gittin' law practice.Mike says you're goin' to git all you want--and if there ain't no other way, why, a few of us 'll go out and MAKE some fer ye!"These prophecies and promises, over which Joe chuckled at first, with his head cocked to one side, grew very soon, to his amazement, to wear a supernatural similarity to actual fulfilment.His friends brought him their own friends, such as had sinned against the laws of Canaan, those under the ban of the sheriff, those who had struck in anger, those who had stolen at night, those who owed and could not pay, those who lived by the dice, and to his other titles to notoriety was added that of defender of the poor and wicked.He found his hands full, especially after winning his first important case--on which occasion Canaan thought the jury mad, and was indignant with the puzzled Judge, who could not see just how it had happened.

Joe did not stop at that.He kept on winning cases, clearing the innocent and lightening the burdens of the guilty; he became the most dangerous attorney for the defence in Canaan; his honorable brethren, accepting the popular view of him, held him in personal contempt but feared him professionally; for he proved that he knew more law than they thought existed; nor could any trick him --failing which, many tempers were lost, but never Joe's.His practice was not all criminal, as shown by the peevish outburst of the eminent Buckalew (the Squire's nephew, esteemed the foremost lawyer in Canaan), "Before long, there won't be any use trying to foreclose a mortgage or collect a note --unless this shyster gets himself in jail!"The wrath of Judge Martin Pike was august--there was a kind of sublimity in its immenseness--on a day when it befell that the shyster stood betwixt him and money.

That was a monstrous task--to stand between these two and separate them, to hold back the hand of Martin Pike from what it had reached out to grasp.It was in the matter of some tax-titles which the magnate had acquired, and, in court, Joe treated the case with such horrifying simplicity that it seemed almost credible that the great man had counted upon the ignorance and besottedness of Joe's client--a hard-drinking, disreputable old farmer--to get his land away from him without paying for it.Now, as every one knew such a thing to be ludicrously impossible, it was at once noised abroad in Canaan that Joe had helped to swindle Judge Pike out of a large sum of money--it was notorious that the shyster could bamboozle court and jury with his tricks;and it was felt that Joe Louden was getting into very deep waters indeed.THIS was serious: if the young man did not LOOK OUT, he might find himself in the penitentiary.

The Tocsin paragraphed him with a fine regularity after this, usually opening with a Walrus-and-the-Carpenter gravity: "The time has come when we must speak of a certain matter frankly," or, "At last the time has arrived when the demoralization of the bar caused by a certain criminal lawyer must be dealt with as it is and without gloves." Once when Joe had saved a half-witted negro from "the extreme penalty" for murder, the Tocsin had declared, with great originality: "This is just the kind of thing that causes mobs and justifies them.