“Hold on, there!” shouted the investigator.  “You may as well stay and settle this matter, Bristol.  You look at this picture!  You recognize it, do you?  If you are in any doubt I’ll inform you that it’s a picture of your father when he and I were in law-school together.”

“I deny any relationship to that man.”

“Your tone and your manner convict you, my boy.  I jumped you with that name purposely.  I am no fool when it comes to examining a witness.  When I first laid eyes on you I thought I had seen you, yourself, somewhere, and I have been puzzling my brains.  Then it occurred to me that I had known in my youth a fellow who looked like you.  You’re the son of your father, all right.  Don’t stultify yourself by lying to me.  You are Morgan Bristol’s boy!  Hah?”

“I am,” confessed the young man, with resignation.

“What is your first name?”

“Thornton.”

“Sit down, Thornton!”

The visitor obeyed.

“What have you done that you’re ashamed of, my boy?”

“I cannot tell you,” said Bristol, firmly.

“Oh, but you’re going to,” insisted the lawyer, with just as much firmness.  “You are now retaining me as your attorney and counsel—­whether you know it or not.  And when a man talks to his lawyer and tells the truth it’s no betrayal of confidence.  Out with it!”

“There’s nothing to be done, Mr. Converse.”

“There’s always something which can be done when a man is in trouble. 
You are Morgan Bristol’s son.  I was in school with your father.  He went
West and settled.  Is he alive?”

“I think so.”

“How is it that you don’t know?”

Mr. Converse settled himself into the tone and pose of the cross-examiner.

“I have been a vagrant, hiding myself in the highways and byways of this country, for a long time.”

“What happened to drive you out like that?”

“Right there, Mr. Converse, is where I must halt.  It is a family matter.  I cannot go into it.”

“Look here, Thornton, you are in trouble.  If you are in trouble, so is your father.  He has lost a boy!  You can tell me now what it’s all about, or I’ll drop my affairs and go and hunt up Morgan Bristol and ask him about it.  You may just as well save me all that time and trouble.  You’re a lawyer, yourself—­I know it.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re a good one and know our code when it comes to secrets.  I am not asking you to expose a family skeleton—­I’m demanding that you treat me as your attorney and trust to my discretion.  You are in trouble and need a helper, and, by gad! you have got to take me into this thing.”

Thornton Bristol set his elbows on his knees and clutched his shaking fingers into his hair.

“I have been meaning to keep it all to myself, sir,” he stammered.

“Quite likely.  You have done mighty well at it, I should judge.  But you know that any man who acts as his own lawyer usually does a mighty poor job.  He lacks perspective.”