A sense of importance sustained me; and I remember in that first flush of a success for which I had not waited too long—­what a secret satisfaction it was to pick up the Era and see my name embedded in certain dignified notices of board meetings, transactions of weight, or cases known to the initiated as significant.  “Mr. Scherer’s interests were taken care of by Mr. Hugh Paret.”  The fact that my triumphs were modestly set forth gave me more pleasure than if they had been trumpeted in headlines.  Although I might have started out in practice for myself, my affection and regard for Mr. Watling kept me in the firm, which became Watling, Fowndes and Paret, and a new, arrangement was entered into:  Mr. Ripon retired on account of ill health.

There were instances, however, when a certain amount of annoying publicity was inevitable.  Such was the famous Galligan case, which occurred some three or four years after my marriage.  Aloysius Galligan was a brakeman, and his legs had become paralyzed as the result of an accident that was the result of defective sills on a freight car.  He had sued, and been awarded damages of $15,000.  To the amazement and indignation of Miller Gorse, the Supreme Court, to which the Railroad had appealed, affirmed the decision.  It wasn’t the single payment of $15,000 that the Railroad cared about, of course; a precedent might be established for compensating maimed employees which would be expensive in the long run.  Carelessness could not be proved in this instance.  Gorse sent for me.  I had been away with Maude at the sea for two months, and had not followed the case.

“You’ve got to take charge, Paret, and get a rehearing.  See Bering, and find out who in the deuce is to blame for this.  Chesley’s one, of course.  We ought never to have permitted his nomination for the Supreme Bench.  It was against my judgment, but Varney and Gill assured me that he was all right.”

I saw Judge Bering that evening.  We sat on a plush sofa in the parlour of his house in Baker Street.

“I had a notion Gorse’d be mad,” he said, “but it looked to me as if they had it on us, Paret.  I didn’t see how we could do anything else but affirm without being too rank.  Of course, if he feels that way, and you want to make a motion for a rehearing, I’ll see what can be done.”

“Something’s got to be done,” I replied.  “Can’t you see what such a decision lets them in for?”

“All right,” said the judge, who knew an order when he heard one, “I guess we can find an error.”  He was not a little frightened by the report of Mr. Gorse’s wrath, for election-day was approaching.  “Say, you wouldn’t take me for a sentimental man, now, would you?”

I smiled at the notion of it.

“Well, I’ll own up to you this kind of got under my skin.  That Galligan is a fine-looking fellow, if there ever was one, and he’ll never be of a bit of use any more.  Of course the case was plain sailing, and they ought to have had the verdict, but that lawyer of his handled it to the queen’s taste, if I do say so.  He made me feel real bad, by God,—­as if it was my own son Ed who’d been battered up.  Lord, I can’t forget the look in that man Galligan’s eyes.  I hate to go through it again, and reverse it, but I guess I’ll have to, now.”