“I don’t know much about law, but it would seem as if they had a pretty strong case,” he answered.  He went on to tell me what he knew of the matter in his clean, pithy sentences, often brutally cynical, as though he had not a spark of interest in any of it.  Mr. Cooke’s claim to the land came from a maternal great-uncle, long since deceased, who had been a settler in these regions.  The railroad answered that they had bought the land with other properties from the man, also deceased, to whom the old gentleman was alleged to have sold it.  Incidentally I learned something of Mr. Cooke’s maternal ancestry.

We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect of so large a case.  Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke.  He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.  A silver snaffle on a heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie, sufficiently proclaimed his tastes.  But I found myself continually returning to the countenance, and I still think I could have modelled a better face out of putty.  The mouth was rather small, thick-tipped, and put in at an odd angle; the brown eyes were large, and from their habit of looking up at one lent to the round face an incongruous solemnity.  But withal there was a perceptible acumen about the man which was puzzling in the extreme.

“How are you, old man?” said he, hardly waiting for Farrar to introduce me.  “Well, I hope.”  It was pure cordiality, nothing more.  He seemed to bubble over with it.

I said I was well, and invited him inside.

“No,” he said; “I like the look of the town.  We can talk business here.”

And talk business he did, straight and to the point, so fast and indistinctly that at times I could scarcely follow him.  I answered his rapid questions briefly, and as best I knew how.  He wanted to know what chance he had to win the suit, and I told him there might be other factors involved beside those of which he had spoken.  Plainly, also, that the character of his great-uncle was in question, an intimation which he did not appear to resent.  But that there was no denying the fact that the railroad had a strong thing of it, and a good lawyer into the bargain.

“And don’t you consider yourself a good lawyer?” he cut in.

I pointed out that the railroad lawyer was a man of twice my age, experience, and reputation.