doctor--or priest--or wife--and straightway it begins to tumble down
toward the brawl and stew of the market place.

In a last effort to rouse the gentleman in Norman or to shame him into
pretense of gentlemanliness, Lockyer expostulated with him like a
prophet priest in full panoply of saintly virtue. And Lockyer was
passing good at that exalted gesture. He was a Websterian figure,
with the venality of the great Daniel in all its pompous dignity
modernized--and correspondingly expanded. He abounded in those idealist
sonorosities that are the stock-in-trade of all solemn old-fashioned
frauds. The young man listened with his wonted attentive courtesy until
the dolorous appeal disguised as fatherly counsel came to an end. Then
in his blue-gray eyes appeared the gleam that revealed the tenacity and
the penetration of his mind. He said:

"Mr. Lockyer, you have been absent six years--except an occasional two
or three weeks--absent as American Ambassador to France. You have done
nothing for the firm in that time. Yet you have not scorned to take
profits you did not earn. Why should I scorn to take profits I do earn?"

Mr. Lockyer shook his picturesque head in sad remonstrance at this
vulgar, coarse, but latterly frequent retort of insurgent democracy upon
indignant aristocracy. But he answered nothing.

"Also," proceeded the graceless youth in the clear and concise way that
won the instant attention of juries and Judges, "also, our profession
is no longer a profession but a business." His humorous eyes twinkled
merrily. "It divides into two parts--teaching capitalists how to loot
without being caught, and teaching them how to get off if by chance
they have been caught. There are other branches of the profession, but