and had begun to buy up reserves.  We had rooms in the same Elizabethan building at the corner of Main and Superior streets, but it was more than a year before I got farther than a nod with him.  Farrar’s nod in itself was a repulsion, and once you had seen it you mentally scored him from the list of your possible friends.  Besides this freezing exterior he possessed a cutting and cynical tongue, and had but little confidence in the human race.  These qualities did not tend to render him popular in a Western town, if indeed they would have recommended him anywhere, and I confess to have thought him a surly enough fellow, being guided by general opinion and superficial observation.  Afterwards the town got to know him, and if it did not precisely like him, it respected him, which perhaps is better.  And he gained at least a few warm-friends, among whom I deem it an honor to be mentioned.

Farrar’s contempt for consequences finally brought him an unsought-for reputation.  Admiration for him was born the day he pushed O’Meara out of his office and down a flight of stairs because he had undertaken to suggest that which should be done with the timber in Jackson County.  By this summary proceeding Farrar lost the support of a faction, O’Meara being a power in the state and chairman of the forestry board besides.  But he got rid of interference from that day forth.

Oddly enough my friendship with Farrar was an indirect result of the incident I have just related.  A few mornings after, I was seated in my office trying to concentrate my mind on page twenty of volume ten of the Records when I was surprised by O’Meara himself, accompanied by two gentlemen whom I remembered to have seen on various witness stands.  O’Meara was handsomely dressed, and his necktie made but a faint pretence of concealing the gorgeous diamond in his shirt-front.  But his face wore an aggrieved air, and his left hand was neatly bound in black and tucked into his coat.  He sank comfortably into my wicker chair, which creaked a protest, and produced two yellow-spotted cigars, chewing the end of one with much apparent relish and pushing the other at me.  His two friends remained respectfully standing.  I guessed at what was coming, and braced myself by refusing the cigar,—­not a great piece of self-denial, by the way.  But a case meant much to me then, and I did seriously regret that O’Meara was not a possible client.  At any rate, my sympathy with Farrar in the late episode put him out of the question.

O’Meara cleared his throat and began gingerly to undo the handkerchief on his hand.  Then he brought his fist down on the table so that the ink started from the stand and his cheeks shook with the effort.

“I’ll make him pay for this!” he shouted, with an oath.

The other gentlemen nodded their approval, while I put the inkstand in a place of safety.

“You’re a pretty bright young man, Mr. Crocker,” he went on, a look of cunning coming into his little eyes, “but I guess you ain’t had too many cases to object to a big one.”