Who could accomplish that in which the law was powerless?--Hummel.
Who could drive to the uttermost ends of the earth persons against
whom not a shadow of suspicion had previously rested?--Hummel. Who
dictated to the chiefs of police of foreign cities what they should
or should not do in certain cases; and who could, at the beckoning
of his little finger, summon to his dungeon-like offices in the New
York Life Building, whither his firm had removed from Centre
Street, the most prominent of lawyers, the most eminent of
citizens?--Surely none but Hummel. And now Hummel was fighting for
his own life. The only man that stood between him and the iron
bars of Blackwell's Island was Charles F. Dodge--the man whom he
had patted on the knee in his office and called a "Mascot," when
quite in the nature of business he needed a little perjury to
assist a wealthy client.

Hummel in terror called into play every resource upon which, during
forty years of practice, his tiny tentacles had fastened. Who
shall say that while he made a show of enjoying himself nightly
with his accustomed lightheartedness in the Tenderloin, he did not
feel confident that in the end this peril would disappear like the
others which had from time to time threatened him during his
criminal career? But Hummel was fully aware of the tenacity of the
man who had resolved to rid New York of his malign influence. His
Nemesis was following him. In his dreams, if he ever dreamed, it
probably took the shape of the square-shouldered District Attorney
in the shadow of whose office building the little shyster practiced
his profession. Had he been told that this Nemesis was in reality
a jovial little man with a round, ruddy face and twinkling blue