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Hodder were disposed to take himself and his profession seriously, he was by no means lacking in an appreciation of Langmaid s humour . . . . The tempering of the lawyer's elation as he returned homeward to report to Mr. Parr and the vestry may be best expressed by his own exclamation, which he made to himself: "I wonder what that fellow would do if he ever got started!"
Hodder had spoken without bitterness, yet his irony was by no means lost on the lawyer. Langmaid, if the truth be told, found himself for the moment in the unusual predicament of being at a loss, for the rector had put forward with more or less precision the very cynical view which he himself had been clever enough to evolve.
There had come a tempting offer, and a struggle just one: a readjustment on the plea that the world had changed since the days of Judge Goodrich, whose uncompromising figure had begun to fade: an exciting discovery that he, Nelson Langmaid, possessed the gift of drawing up agreements which had the faculty of passing magically through the meshes of the Statutes.
"That's just it. Hodder seems to me, now I come to think of it, just the kind of John Brown type who wouldn't hesitate to get into a row with Eldon Parr if he thought it was right, and pull down any amount of disagreeable stuff about our ears." "You're mixing your heroes, Wallis," said Langmaid. "I can't help it. You'd catch it, too, Nelson.
It was this hair that hinted most strongly of individualism, that was by no means orthodox. Langmaid felt an incongruity, but he was fascinated; and he had discovered on the rector's shelves evidences of the taste for classical authors that he himself possessed. Thus fate played with him, and the two men ranged from Euripides to Horace, from Horace to Dante and Gibbon.
"That's just it. Hodder seems to me, now I come to think of it, just the kind of John Brown type who wouldn't hesitate to get into a row with Eldon Parr if he thought it was right, and pull down any amount of disagreeable stuff about our ears." "You're mixing your heroes, Wallis," said Langmaid. "I can't help it. You'd catch it, too, Nelson.
Parr seemed indeed to regard the rest of his fellow-creatures with the suspicion at which Langmaid had hinted, to look askance at the amenities people tentatively held out to him. And the private watchman whom Hodder sometimes met in the darkness, and who invariably scrutinized pedestrians on Park Street, seemed symbolic, of this attitude.
Parr's getting ready to make another big haul right now. I know, because Plimpton said as much, although he didn't confide in me what this particular piece of rascality is. He knows better." Phil Goodrich looked grim. "But the law?" exclaimed his wife. "There never was a law that Nelson Langmaid couldn't drive a horse and carriage through." "And Mr. Langmaid's one of the nicest men I know!"
The clergyman had contrived to step out of his, Langmaid's, experience: had actually set him who all his life had known no difficulty in dealing with men to groping for a medium of communication . . . . Hodder sat down on the other side of the fireplace. He, too, seemed to be striving for a common footing. "It was a question of proclaiming the truth when at last I came to see it, Langmaid.
I made a contract with you in all good faith." "And I with you," answered the rector. "Perhaps you do not realize, Langmaid, what has been the chief factor in developing these views." The lawyer was silent, from caution. "I must be frank with you. It was the discovery that Mr.
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