"You may be right," she commented; "the reasoning is perfectly sound. But
that means you must get the business in order to make it pay. What are your
plans?"

He confessed that as yet they were rather vague; there had not been time to
do much--too busy settling.

"The usual thing, I suppose," he added: "get acquainted, hang out a
shingle, mix with people, sit down and starve in the traditional manner of
young lawyers."

He laughed lightly, but she refused to joke.

"There are a good many lawyers here--and most of them poor ones," she told
him. "The difficulty is to stand out above the ruck, to become noticed. You
must get to know all classes, of course; but especially those of your own
profession, men on the bench. Yes, especially men on the bench, they may
help you more than any others--"

He seemed to catch a little cynicism in her implied meaning, and
experienced a sense of shock on his professional side.

"You don't mean that judges are--"

"Susceptible to influence?" She finished the sentence for him with an
amused little laugh. She studied him for an instant with new interest,
"They're human--more human here than anywhere else--like the rest of us--
they respond to kind treatment--" She laughed again, but at the sight of
his face her own became grave. She checked herself. "Everything is so new
out here. In older countries the precedents have all been established. Out