Sunday-school to learn what is right. But you go to those books to learn . . . law.”
“Do you mean to tell me that Jackson had the right on his side and yet was beaten?” I queried tentatively. “Do you mean to tell me that there is no justice in Judge Caldwell’s court?”
The little lawyer glared at me a moment, and then the belligerence faded out of his face.
“I hadn’t a fair chance,” he began whining again. “They made a fool out of Jackson and out of me, too. What chance had I? Colonel Ingram is a great lawyer. If he wasn’t great, would he have charge of the law business of the Sierra Mills, of the Erston Land Syndicate, of the Berkeley Consolidated, of the Oakland, San Leandro, and Pleasanton Electric? He’s a corporation lawyer, and corporation lawyers are not paid for being fools.27 What do you think the Sierra Mills alone give him twenty thousand dollars a year for? Because he’s worth twenty thousand dollars a year to them, that’s what for. I’m not worth that much. If I was, I wouldn’t be on the outside, starving and taking cases like Jackson’s. What do you think I’d have got if I’d won Jackson’s case?”
“You’d have robbed him, most probably,” I answered.
“Of course I would,” he cried angrily. “I’ve got to live, haven’t I?”28
“He has a wife and children,” I chided.
“So have I a wife and children,” he retorted. “And there’s not a soul in this world except myself that cares whether they starve or not.”
His face suddenly softened, and he opened his watch and showed me a small photograph of a woman and two little girls pasted inside the case.
“There they are. Look at them. We’ve had a hard time, a hard time. I had hoped to send them away to the country if I’d won Jackson’s case.