a brotherly caress. Why, they might not even know that he was a brotherly fellow. They might deal with him just as abstractly as if he were a sordid, avaricious, selfish person instead of—what he was.
Yes—it seemed unthinkable; yet it was so. Today all the vast upreared mountain of his possessions trembled as if based upon a sea of jelly. One rude wrench and the mountain might careen and go upside down like an iceberg when the bottom melts off. Each thought of this brought a lump into Boland's hard old throat. That such a situation had been permitted to come to pass was bad management, bad strategy, he reflected bitterly. But then it was such an unforeseen development that ever this Supreme Court of the United States would perversely overlook the briefs before, and opinions of, the lower courts and go digging into the record itself where there was skilfully buried, deeply covered over—a crime. It was a crime in the interest of civilization, to be sure, but, if a court were inclined to be extremely technical, none the less a crime.
And judging by the frantic telegrams that had been passing between Wendell and Scanlon this Supreme Court, with its unscratched backs, was inclined to be very technical. For this reason Boland was tramping by day and tossing by night; for this reason he sweated in helplessness—because there was nothing that he could do. The issues of his life hung in the balance and not a breath could he blow upon those balances. Inactivity had never been so agonizing. He had dispatched letter-long telegrams, he had sent urgent and excited representatives to Washington. For twenty-four hours they had hurried hither and yon. They had found entrée to congressmen, to senators,
