The little lawyer glared at me a moment, and then the belligerence faded out of his face.
‘I hadn’t a fair chance,’ he began whining again. ‘They made a fool out of Jackson and out of me, too. What chance had I? Colonel Ingram is a great lawyer. If he wasn’t great, would he have charge of the law business of the Sierra Mills, of the Erston Land Syndicate, of the Berkeley Consolidated, of the Oakland, San Leandro, and Pleasanton Electric? He’s a corporation lawyer, and corporation lawyers are not paid for being fools.4 What do you think the Sierra Mills alone give him twenty thousand dollars a year for? Because he’s worth twenty thousand dollars a year to them, that’s what for. I’m not worth that much. If I was, I wouldn’t be on the outside, starving and taking cases like Jackson’s. What do you think I’d have got if I’d won Jackson’s case?’
‘You’d have robbed him, most probably,’ I answered.
‘Of course I would,’ he cried angrily. ‘I’ve got to live, haven’t I?’5
‘He has a wife and children,’ I chided.
‘So have I a wife and children,’ he retorted. ‘And there’s not a soul in this world except myself that cares whether they starve or not.’
His face suddenly softened, and he opened his watch and showed me a small photograph of a woman and two little girls pasted inside the case.
‘There they are. Look at them. We’ve had a hard time, a hard time. I had hoped to send them away to the country if I’d won Jackson’s case. They’re not healthy here, but I can’t afford to send them away.’
When I started to leave, he dropped back into his whine.
‘I hadn’t a ghost of a chance. Colonel Ingram and Judge Caldwell are pretty friendly. I’m not saying that if I’d got the right kind of testimony out of their witnesses on cross-examination, that friendship would have decided the case. And yet I must say that Judge Caldwell did a whole lot to prevent my getting that very testimony. Why, Judge Caldwell and Colonel Ingram belong to the same lodge and the same club. They live in the same neighbourhood—one I can’t afford. And their wives are always in and out of each other’s houses. They’re always having whist parties and such things back and forth.’
‘And yet you think Jackson had the right of it?’ I asked, pausing for the moment on the threshold.
‘I don’t think; I know it,’ was his answer. ‘And at first I thought he had some show, too. But I didn’t tell my wife. I didn’t want to disappoint her: she had her heart set on a trip to the country. Hard enough as it was.’
‘Why did you not call attention to the fact that Jackson was trying to save the machinery from being injured?’ I asked Peter Donnelly, one of the foremen who had testified at the trial.
He pondered a long time before replying. Then he cast an anxious look about him and said:
‘Because I’ve a good wife an’ three of the sweetest children ye ever laid eyes on, that’s why.’
‘I do not understand,’ I said.
‘In other words, because it wouldn’t a-ben healthy,’ he answered.
‘You mean—’ I began.
But he interrupted passionately.
‘I mean what I said. It’s long years I’ve worked in the mills. I began as a little lad on the spindles, I worked up ever since. It’s by hard work I got to my present exalted position. I’m a foreman, if you please. An’ I doubt me if there’s a man in the mills that’d put out a hand to drag me from drownin’. I used to belong to the union. But I’ve stayed by the company through two strikes. They called me ‘scab’. There’s not a man among ’em today to take a drink with me if I asked him. D’ye see the scars on me head where I was struck with flying bricks? There ain’t a child at the spindles but what would curse me name. Me only friend is the company. It’s not me duty, but me bread and butter an’ the life of me children to stand by the mills. That’s why.’
‘Was Jackson to blame?’ I asked.
‘He should a-got the damages. He was a good worker an’ never made trouble.’
‘Then you are not at liberty to tell the whole truth, as you had sworn to do?’
He shook his head.
‘The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?’ I said solemnly.
Again his face became impassioned, and he lifted it, not to me, but to heaven.
‘I’d let me soul an’ body burn in everlastin’ hell for them children of mine,’ was his answer.
Henry Dallas, the superintendent, was a vulpine-faced creature who regarded me insolently and refused to talk. Not a word could I get from him concerning the trial and his testimony. But with the other foreman I had better luck. James Smith was a hard-faced man, and my heart sank as I encountered him. He, too, gave me the impression that he was not a free agent, and as we talked I began to see that he was mentally superior to the average of his kind. He agreed with Peter Donnelly that Jackson should have got damages, and he went further and called the action heartless and cold-blooded that had turned the worker adrift after he had been made helpless by the accident. Also, he explained that there were many accidents in the mills, and that the company’s policy was to fight to the bitter end all consequent damage suits.
‘It means hundreds of thousands a year to the stockholders,’ he said; and as he spoke I remembered the last dividend that had been paid my father, and the pretty gown for me and the books for him that had been bought out of that dividend. I remembered Ernest’s charge that my gown was stained with blood, and my flesh began to crawl underneath my garments.
‘When you testified at the trial, you didn’t point out that Jackson received his accident through trying to save the machinery from damage?’ I said.
‘No, I did not,’ was the answer, and his mouth set bitterly. ‘I testified to the effect that Jackson injured himself by neglect and carelessness, and that the company was not in any way to blame or liable.’
‘Was it carelessness?’ I asked.
‘Call it that, or anything you want to call it. The fact is, a man gets tired after he’s been working for hours.’
I was becoming interested in the man. He certainly was of a superior kind.
‘You are better educated than most working men,’ I said.
‘I went through high school,’ he replied. ‘I worked my way through doing janitor-work. I wanted to go through the university. But my father died, and I came to work in the mills.
‘I wanted to become a naturalist,’ he explained shyly, as though confessing a weakness. ‘I love animals. But I came to work in the mills. When I was promoted to foreman I got married, then the family came, and…well, I wasn’t my own boss any more.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked.
‘I was explaining why I testified at the trial the way I did—why I followed instructions.’
‘Whose instructions?’
‘Colonel Ingram. He outlined the evidence I was to give.’
‘And it lost Jackson’s case for him.’
He nodded, and the blood began to rise darkly in his face.
‘And Jackson had a wife and two children dependent on him.’
‘I know,’ he said quietly, though his face was growing darker.
‘Tell me,’ I went on, ‘was it easy to make yourself over from what you were, say in high school, to the man you must have become to do such a thing at the trial?’
The suddenness of his outburst startled and frightened me. He ripped6 out a savage oath, and clenched his fist as though about to strike me.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said the next moment. ‘No, it was not easy. And now I guess you can go away. You’ve got all you wanted out of me. But let me tell you this before you go. It won’t do you any good to repeat anything I’ve said. I’ll deny it, and there are no witnesses. I’ll deny every word of it; and if I have to, I’ll do it under oath on the witness stand.’
After my interview with Smith I went to my father’s office in the Chemistry Building and there encountered Ernest. It was quite unexpected, but he met me with his bold eyes and firm handclasp, and with that curious blend of his of awkwardness and ease. It was as though our last stormy meeting was forgotten; but I was not in the mood to have it forgotten.
‘I have been looking up Jackson’s case,’ I said abruptly.
He was all interested attention, and waited for me to go on, though I could see in his eyes the certitude that my convictions had been shaken.