"You've learned something," said Mr. Tutt suavely. "I hope you will put
it to good account. Here's '76 Fed.' Take it out and console the Fat and
Skinny Club with it if you can."

Mr. Tutt surrendered the volume without apparent regret and Tutt retired
to his own office and to the task of soothing the injured feelings of
Mr. Sorg.

A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness
and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once
inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even
timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not
affect to have any. To her neither Tutt nor Mr. Tutt was any such great
shakes. Had Tutt dared to let her know of many of the schemes which he
devised for the profit or safety of his clients she would have thought
less of him still; in fact, she might have parted with him forever. In a
sense Mrs. Tutt was an exacting woman. Though she somewhat reluctantly
consented to view the hours from nine a.m. to five p.m. in her husband's
day as belonging to the law, she emphatically regarded the rest of the
twenty-four hours as belonging to her.

The law may be, as Judge Holmes has called it, "a jealous mistress," but
in the case of Tutt it was not nearly so jealous as his wife. So Tutt
was compelled to walk the straight-and-narrow path whether he liked it
or not. On the whole he liked it well enough, but there were
times--usually in the spring--when without being conscious of what was
the matter with him he mourned his lost youth. For Tutt was only
forty-eight and he had had a grandfather who had lived strenuously to
upward of twice that age. He was vigorous, sprightly, bright-eyed and as
hard as nails, even if somewhat resembling in his contours the late Mr.