"Some men, you know," he said, "might have kept on, and worked against
you, while accepting your retainer; there are such skunks at the bar."
"There are black sheep in every fold," returned the colonel with a
cold smile. "It would be unprofessional, I suppose, to name your
client, so I'll not ask you."
The judge did not volunteer the information, but the colonel knew
instinctively whence came opposition to his plan, and investigation
confirmed his intuition. Judge Bullard was counsel for Fetters in all
matters where skill and knowledge were important, and Fetters held his
note, secured by mortgage, for money loaned. For dirty work Fetters
used tools of baser metal, but, like a wise man, he knew when these
were useless, and was shrewd enough to keep the best lawyers under his
control.
The colonel, after careful inquiry, engaged to take Judge Bullard's
place, one Albert Caxton, a member of a good old family, a young man,
and a capable lawyer, who had no ascertainable connection with
Fetters, and who, in common with a small fraction of the best people,
regarded Fetters with distrust, and ascribed his wealth to usury and
to what, in more recent years, has come to be known as "graft."
To a man of Colonel French's business training, opposition was merely
a spur to effort. He had not run a race of twenty years in the
commercial field, to be worsted in the first heat by the petty boss of
a Southern backwoods county. Why Fetters opposed him he did not know.
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