turned and left the room. Of course, St. Clair, such a strange man
would soon become an object of all kinds of mysterious rumors.
Some are true and some are not. At any rate, I know that Mason is
an unusual man with a gigantic intellect. Of late he seems to have
taken a strange fancy to me. In fact, I seem to be the only member
of the club that he will talk with, and I confess that he startles
and fascinates me. He is an original genius, St. Clair, of an
unusual order."

"I recall vividly," said the younger man, "that before Mason went
to Paris he was considered one of the greatest lawyers of this city
and he was feared and hated by the bar at large. He came here, I
believe, from Virginia and began with the high-grade criminal
practice. He soon became famous for his powerful and ingenious
defenses. He found holes in the law through which his clients
escaped, holes that by the profession at large were not suspected
to exist, and that frequently astonished the judges. His ability
caught the attention of the great corporations. They tested him
and found in him learning and unlimited resources. He pointed out
methods by which they could evade obnoxious statutes, by which they
could comply with the apparent letter of the law and yet violate
its spirit, and advised them well in that most important of all
things, just how far they could bend the law without breaking it.
At the time he left for Paris he had a vast clientage and was in
the midst of a brilliant career. The day he took passage from New
York, the bar lost sight of him. No matter how great a man may be,
the wave soon closes over him in a city like this. In a few years
Mason was forgotten. Now only the older practitioners would recall
him, and they would do so with hatred and bitterness. He was a
tireless, savage, uncompromising fighter, always a recluse."