Part 78

"Tell him to come to my office to-morrow--that means to-day--at any time after eleven."

"But that gives you no chance to pull yourself together," objected Tetlow.

Norman's face, seen in the light of the street lamp they happened to be passing, showed ironic amusement. "Never mind about me, Billy. Tell him to come."

Tetlow cleared his throat nervously. "Don't you think, old man, that you'd better go to see him? I'll arrange the appointment."

Norman said quietly: "Tetlow, I've dropped pretty far. But not so far that I go to my clients. The rule of calls is that the man seeking the favor goes to the man who can grant it."

"But it isn't the custom nowadays for a lawyer to deal that way with a man like Galloway."

"And neither is it the custom for anyone to have any self-respect. Does Galloway need my brains more than I need his money, or do I need his money more than he needs my brains? You know what the answer to that is, Billy. We are partners--you and I. I'm training you for the position."

"Galloway won't come," said Tetlow curtly.

"So much the worse for him," retorted Norman placidly. "No--I've not been drinking too much, old man--as your worried--old-maid look suggests. Do a little thinking. If Galloway doesn't get me, whom will he get?"

"You know very well, Norman, there are scores of lawyers, good ones, who'd crawl at his feet for his business. Nowadays, most lawyers are always looking round for a pair of rich man's boots to lick."

"But I am not 'most lawyers,'" said Norman. "Of course, if Galloway could make me come to him, he'd be a fool to come to me. But when he finds I'm not coming, why, he'll behave himself--if his business is important enough for me to bother with."

"But if he doesn't come, Fred?"

"Then--my Universal Fuel scheme, or some other equally good. But you will never see me limbering my knees in the anteroom of a rich man, when he needs me and I don't need him."

"Well, we'll see," said Tetlow, with the air of a sober man patient with one who is not sober.

"By the way," continued Norman, "if Galloway says he's too ill to come--or anything of that sort--tell him I'd not care to undertake the affairs of a man too old or too feeble to attend to business, as he might die in the midst of it."

Tetlow's face was such a wondrous exhibit of discomfiture that Norman laughed outright. Evidently he had forestalled his fat friend in a scheme to get him to Galloway in spite of himself. "All right--all right," said Tetlow fretfully. "We'll sleep on this. But I don't see why you're so opposed to going to see the man. It looks like snobbishness to me--false pride--silly false pride."

"It is snobbishness," said Norman. "But you forget that snobbishness rules the world. The way to rule fools is to make them respect you. And the way to make them respect you is by showing them that they are your inferiors. I want Galloway's respect because I want his money. And I'll not get his money--as much of it as belongs to me--except by showing him my value. Not my value as a lawyer, for he knows that already, but my value as a man. Do you see?"

"No, I don't," snapped Tetlow.

"That's what it means to be Tetlow. Now, I do see--and that's why I'm Norman."

Tetlow looked at him doubtfully, uncertain whether he had been listening to wisdom put in a jocose form of audacious egotism or to the effervescings of intoxication. The hint of a smile lurking in the sobriety of the powerful features of his extraordinary friend only increased his doubt. Was Norman mocking him, and himself as well? If so, was it the mockery of sober sense or of drunkenness?

"You seem to be puzzled, Billy," said Norman, and Tetlow wondered how he had seen. "Don't get your brains in a stew trying to understand me. I'm acting the way I've always acted--except in one matter. You know that I know what I'm about?"

"I certainly do," replied his admirer.

"Then, let it go at that. If you could understand me--the sort of man I am, the sort of thing I do--you'd not need me, but would be the whole show yourself--eh? That being true, don't show yourself a commonplace nobody by deriding and denying what your brain is unable to comprehend. Show yourself a somebody by seeing the limitations of your ability. The world is full of little people who criticise and judge and laugh at and misunderstand the few real intelligences. And very tedious interruptions of the scenery those little people are. Don't be one of them. . . . Did you know my wife's father?"

Tetlow startled. "No--that is, yes," he stammered. "That is, I met him a few times."

"Often enough to find out that he was crazy?"

"Oh, yes. He explained some of his ideas to me. Yes--he was quite mad, poor fellow."

Norman gave way to a fit of silent laughter. "I can imagine," he presently said, "what you'd have thought if Columbus or Alexander or Napoleon or Stevenson or even the chaps who doped out the telephone and the telegraph--if they had talked to you before they arrived. Or even after they arrived, if they had been explaining some still newer and bigger idea not yet accomplished."

"You don't think Mr. Hallowell was mad?"