rather separated -- this apartment from the hallway.
Here was stationed Archibald, who wrested from visitors

their cards or oral nomenclature which he bore to his
master while they waited.

Suddenly, on this day, there came a great knocking
at the outermost door.

Archibald, opening it, was thrust aside as superfluous
by the visitor, who without due reverence at once pene-

trated to the office of Lawyer Gooch and threw himself
with good-naturedinsolence into a comfortable chair

facing that gentlemen.
"You are Phineas C. Gooch, attorney-at-law?" said

the visitor, his tone of voice and inflection making his
words at once a question, an assertion and an accusation.

Before committing himself by a reply, the lawyer esti-
mated his possible client in one of his brief but shrewd

and calculating glances.
The man was of the emphatic type -- large-sized, active,

bold and debonair in demeanour, vain beyond a doubt,
slightly swaggering, ready and at ease. He was well-

clothed, but with a shade too much ornateness. He was
seeking a lawyer; but if that fact would seem to saddle

him with troubles they were not patent in his beaming
eye and courageous air.

"My name is Gooch," at length the lawyer admitted.
Upon pressure he would also have confessed to the Phineas

C. But he did not consider it good practice to volunteer
information. "I did not receive your card," he continued,

by way of rebuke, "so I -- "
"I know you didn't," remarked the visitor, coolly;

"And you won't just yet. Light up?" He threw a leg
over an arm of his chair, and tossed a handful of rich-

hued cigars upon the table. Lawyer Gooch knew the
brand. He thawed just enough to accept the invitation

to smoke.
"You are a divorcelawyer," said the cardless visitor.

This time there was no interrogation in his voice. Nor
did his words constitute a simple assertion. They formed

a charge -- a denunciation -- as one would say to a dog:
"You are a dog." Lawyer Gooch was silent under the

imputation.
"You handle," continued the visitor, "all the various

ramifications of busted-up connubiality. You are a
surgeon, we might saw, who extracts Cupid's darts when

he shoots 'em into the wrong parties. You furnish
patent, incandescent lights for premises where the torch

of Hymen has burned so low you can't light a cigar at it.
Am I right, Mr. Gooch?"

"I have undertaken cases," said the lawyer, guardedly,
"in the line to which your figurative speech seems to refer.

Do you wish to consult me professionally, Mr. -- "
The lawyer paused, with significance.

"Not yet," said the other, with an arch wave of his
cigar, "not just yet. Let us approach the subject with

the caution that should have been used in the original
act that makes this pow-wow necessary. There exists a

matrimonial jumble to be straightened out. But before
I give you names I want your honest -- well, anyhow,

your professional opinion on the merits of the mix-up.
I want you to size up the catastrophe -- abstractly -- you

understand? I'm Mr. Nobody; and I've got a story to tell
you. Then you say what's what. Do you get my wireless?"

"You want to state a hypothetical case?" suggested
Lawyer Gooch.

"That's the word I was after. 'Apothecary' was the
best shot I could make at it in my mind. The hypo-

thetical goes. I'll state the case. Suppose there's a
woman -- a deuced fine-looking woman -- who has run

away from her husband and home? She's badly mashed
on another man who went to her town to work up some

real estate business. Now, we may as well call this
woman's husband Thomas R. Billings, for that's his

name. I'm giving you straight tips on the cognomens.
The Lothario chap is Henry K. Jessup. The Billingses

lived in a little town called Susanville -- a good many
miles from here. Now, Jessup leaves Susanville two

weeks ago. The next day Mrs. Billings follows him.
She's dead gone on this man Jessup; you can bet your

law library on that."
Lawyer Gooch's client said this with such unctuous

satisfaction that even the callous lawyerexperienced a
slight ripple of repulsion. He now saw clearly in his

fatuous visitor the conceit of the lady-killer, the egoistic
complacency of the successful trifler.

"Now," continued the visitor, "suppose this Mrs.
Billings wasn't happy at home? We'll say she and her

husband didn't gee worth a cent. They've got incom-
patibility to burn. The things she likes, Billings wouldn't

have as a gift with trading-stamps. It's Tabby and
Rover with them all the time. She's an educated woman

in science and culture, and she reads things out loud at
meetings. Billings is not on. He don't appreciate pro-

gress and obelisks and ethics, and things of that sort. Old
Billings is simply a blink when it comes to such things.

The lady is out and out above his class. Now, lawyer,
don't it look like a fair equalization of rights and wrongs

that a woman like that should be allowed to throw down
Billings and take the man that can appreciate her?

"Incompatibility," said Lawyer Gooch, "is undoubt-
edly the source of much marital discord and unhappiness.

Where it is positively proved, divorce would seem to be
the equitable remedy. Are you -- excuse me -- is this

man Jessup one to whom the lady may safely trust
her future?"

"Oh, you can bet on Jessup," said the client, with a
confident wag of his head. "Jessup's all right. He'll

do the square thing. Why, he left Susanville just to keep
pwple from talking about Mrs. Billings. But she fol-

lowed him up, and now, of course, he'll stick to her.
When she gets a divorce, all legal and proper, Jessup

the proper thing."
"And now," said Lawyer Gooch, "continuing the hypo-

if you prefer, and supposing that my services should
ired in the case, what -- "

The client rose impulsively to his feet.
"Oh, dang the hypothetical business," he exclaimed,

impatiently. "Let's let her drop, and get down to
straight talk. You ought to know who I am by this time.

I want that woman to have her divorce. I'll pay for
it. The day you set Mrs. Billings free I'll pay you five

hundred dollars."
Lawyer Gooch's client banged his fist upon the table

to punctuate his generosity.
"If that is the case -- " began the lawyer.