“Billings!” shouted the now thoroughly moved client.  “I’ll Billings you, you old idiot!”

Turning, he hurled his satchel with fury at the lawyer’s head.  It struck that astounded peacemaker between the eyes, causing him to stagger backward a pace or two.  When Lawyer Gooch recovered his wits he saw that his client had disappeared.  Rushing to the window, he leaned out, and saw the recreant gathering himself up from the top of a shed upon which he had dropped from the second-story window.  Without stopping to collect his hat he then plunged downward the remaining ten feet to the alley, up which he flew with prodigious celerity until the surrounding building swallowed him up from view.

Lawyer Gooch passed his hand tremblingly across his brow.  It was a habitual act with him, serving to clear his thoughts.  Perhaps also it now seemed to soothe the spot where a very hard alligator-hide satchel had struck.

The satchel lay upon the floor, wide open, with its contents spilled about.  Mechanically, Lawyer Gooch stooped to gather up the articles.  The first was a collar; and the omniscient eye of the man of law perceived, wonderingly, the initials H. K. J. marked upon it.  Then came a comb, a brush, a folded map, and a piece of soap.  Lastly, a handful of old business letters, addressed—­every one of them—­to “Henry K. Jessup, Esq.”

Lawyer Gooch closed the satchel, and set it upon the table.  He hesitated for a moment, and then put on his hat and walked into the office boy’s anteroom.

“Archibald,” he said mildly, as he opened the hall door, “I am going around to the Supreme Court rooms.  In five minutes you may step into the inner office, and inform the lady who is waiting there that”—­ here Lawyer Gooch made use of the vernacular—­“that there’s nothing doing.”

IV

CALLOWAY’S CODE

The New York Enterprise sent H. B. Calloway as special correspondent to the Russo-Japanese-Portsmouth war.

For two months Calloway hung about Yokohama and Tokio, shaking dice with the other correspondents for drinks of ’rickshaws—­oh, no, that’s something to ride in; anyhow, he wasn’t earning the salary that his paper was paying him.  But that was not Calloway’s fault.  The little brown men who held the strings of Fate between their fingers were not ready for the readers of the Enterprise to season their breakfast bacon and eggs with the battles of the descendants of the gods.

But soon the column of correspondents that were to go out with the First Army tightened their field-glass belts and went down to the Yalu with Kuroki.  Calloway was one of these.

Now, this is no history of the battle of the Yalu River.  That has been told in detail by the correspondents who gazed at the shrapnel smoke rings from a distance of three miles.  But, for justice’s sake, let it be understood that the Japanese commander prohibited a nearer view.