Argosy, Vol. 111, No. 1 — page 52: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A2 THE of sight in the inner office for the most were disbarred attorneys with decidedly dis- creditable records. At last suspicion took tangible form. He was now convinced that these people who had seemed so eager for his services were engaged in a practise that was “ sharp,” to say the least, and perhaps actually. crim- inal. Had his own past record, then, been a positive point in his fayor, and had they employed him with the hope that his re- form was not too genuine? CHAPTER VIL. HIS FACILE PEN. WITHIN a few days after this disquiet- Ing suspicion crystallized in Brad- well’s mind, a series of swift-moving events turned it into definite knowledge. These incidents pivoted on his ability as a pen- man, of which the head ef the firm had made so much at the time of his employ- ment. What had been a passing mystery to him at the moment was made clear, and at the same time he was filled with disgust at the ease with which he had temporarily been lulled to sleep. His task of signing the routine letters of the office with the name of the head of the firm had seemed at first only a minor one even among the vast number of petty jobs that fall to the lot of a student clerk in a law office. He dubbed himself the human rubber stamp and enlivened the irksome, routine job each day with a running fire of humorous comment that greatly enter- tained the stenographic force. But he was too active-minded to perform even such humdrum work in an entirely perfunctory way. He formed the habit of glancing over the letters he signed, with the idea of making himself familiar with some of the details of the firm’s business. After a week or so he began to note a grow- ing importance in the nature of some of these letters. He was pleased at first to think this was evidence of Guthrie’s grow- ing confidence in him. Occasionally a client, too, would dictate a letter in the of- fice and not wait for a copy, leaving Brad- well to imitate his signature. ARGOSY. Then one day he noted a document so significant that he felt sure it must have slipped into the routine pile by mistake. He referred it to Worden, the managing clerk. 3 “Don’t worry your head about any of those letters,” Worden ruled, passing the paper back after a hasty glance at it. ‘You can rest assured the boss has gone carefully over everything of importance. He’s just one of these guys who’s got the art of saving himself trouble dewn to a science. What’s the use of his climbing onto a pen handle and grinding out his monniker when you can make a set of scratches he can’t tell from his own? Hence your princely income, my son.” Silenced but still a bit uneasy, Bradwell | returned to his work. The merest tyro at the law would know that séme of the docu- ments he had signed for Guthrie would never. hold in court if the genuineness of the signature were disproved. It puzzled him that so shrewd a lawyer would follow so slipshod a practise. Two or three days later he learned the method back of this apparent madness. After starting for home in the evening, he had returned to the office for a moment to get a paper he had forgotten. There was no one there but Worden and Guthrie, who were talking in Guthrie’s office and did not hear him come in. | “Well,” the head of the firm was saying, ‘“ Bradwell’s facile pen saved our client a snug fortune on that Bay City coniract. If he’d had to deliver one cargo at that contract price, with the bottom gone out of the market as it is, we’d be handling an assignment for him now. I convinced ’em that Jennings had changed his mind after dictating the contract, and that by mistake an officious new clerk had sent it through after putting the old man’s signature on. At least I convinced ’em they couldn’t prove the contrary after they called in a handwriting shark and paid him a fee to tell ’em the signature was bogus. Some little find Bradwell was!” The subject of this illuminating explana- tion heard no more, for he hurried out as quietly as he had come in. He had heard enough. It was clear now GOMIIGIOO SS Co