Chapter III

A first interview with the Hon. J. W. Cabot, senior member of the firm of Cabot, Hollingsworth & Perry, generally resulted in a belief that this distinguished lawyer was a severe, unsympathetic man whose dignity, under ordinary pressure, was not likely to abate. An abundant crop of short gray hair covered a square, well-shaped head; a head that seemed hard and strong. His forehead, his jaw, and his shoulders were also square, and they also seemed hard and strong.

His manner was cold, his voice firm and even, and he was never ruffled. The cool gray eyes rested calmly upon you as if screening, out of consideration for your own fallacious knowledge, the profundity of wisdom that reposed behind them. His memory seemed infallible. The extent and accuracy of his legal knowledge was a perpetual surprise, even to his partners. For simplifying complex entanglements his clearness and rapidity amounted to a genius. His fees were colossal. In short, he seemed just the man who would never write such a note as this:

TOWHEAD: