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+Project Gutenberg Etext A Wasted Day, by Richard Harding Davis
+#24 in our series by Richard Harding Davis
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+A Wasted Day
+
+by Richard Harding Davis
+
+July, 1999  [Etext #1820]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext A Wasted Day, by Richard Harding Davis
+*****This file should be named wstdy10.txt or wstdy10.zip*****
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+Prepared by Don Lainson
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+
+
+
+
+A WASTED DAY
+
+
+When its turn came, the private secretary, somewhat apologetically,
+laid the letter in front of the Wisest Man in Wall Street.
+
+"From Mrs. Austin, probation officer, Court of General Sessions,"
+he explained.  "Wants a letter about Spear.  He's been convicted of
+theft.  Comes up for sentence Tuesday."
+
+"Spear?" repeated Arnold Thorndike.
+
+"Young fellow, stenographer, used to do your letters last summer
+going in and out on the train."
+
+The great man nodded.  "I remember.  What about him?"
+
+The habitual gloom of the private secretary was lightened by a
+grin.
+
+"Went on the loose; had with him about five hundred dollars
+belonging to the firm; he's with Isaacs & Sons now, shoe people on
+Sixth Avenue.  Met a woman, and woke up without the money.  The
+next morning he offered to make good, but Isaacs called in a
+policeman.  When they looked into it, they found the boy had been
+drunk.  They tried to withdraw the charge, but he'd been committed.
+Now, the probation officer is trying to get the judge to suspend
+sentence.  A letter from you, sir, would--"
+
+It was evident the mind of the great man was elsewhere.  Young men
+who, drunk or sober, spent the firm's money on women who
+disappeared before sunrise did not appeal to him.  Another letter
+submitted that morning had come from his art agent in Europe.  In
+Florence he had discovered the Correggio he had been sent to find.
+It was undoubtedly genuine, and he asked to be instructed by cable.
+The price was forty thousand dollars.  With one eye closed, and the
+other keenly regarding the inkstand, Mr. Thorndike decided to pay
+the price; and with the facility of long practice dismissed the
+Correggio, and snapped his mind back to the present.
+
+"Spear had a letter from us when he left, didn't he?" he asked.
+"What he has developed into, SINCE he left us--" he shrugged his
+shoulders.  The secretary withdrew the letter, and slipped another
+in its place.
+
+"Homer Firth, the landscape man," he chanted, "wants permission to
+use blue flint on the new road, with turf gutters, and to plant
+silver firs each side.  Says it will run to about five thousand
+dollars a mile."
+
+"No!" protested the great man firmly, "blue flint makes a country
+place look like a cemetery.  Mine looks too much like a cemetery
+now.  Landscape gardeners!" he exclaimed impatiently.  "Their only
+idea is to insult nature.  The place was better the day I bought
+it, when it was running wild; you could pick flowers all the way to
+the gates."  Pleased that it should have recurred to him, the great
+man smiled.  "Why, Spear," he exclaimed, "always took in a bunch of
+them for his mother.  Don't you remember, we used to see him before
+breakfast wandering around the grounds picking flowers?"  Mr.
+Thorndike nodded briskly.  "I like his taking flowers to his
+mother."
+
+"He SAID it was to his mother," suggested the secretary gloomily.
+
+"Well, he picked the flowers, anyway," laughed Mr. Thorndike.  "He
+didn't pick our pockets.  And he had the run of the house in those
+days.  As far as we know," he dictated, "he was satisfactory.
+Don't say more than that."
+
+The secretary scribbled a mark with his pencil.  "And the landscape
+man?"
+
+"Tell him," commanded Thorndike, "I want a wood road, suitable to a
+farm; and to let the trees grow where God planted them."
+
+As his car slid downtown on Tuesday morning the mind of Arnold
+Thorndike was occupied with such details of daily routine as the
+purchase of a railroad, the Japanese loan, the new wing to his art
+gallery, and an attack that morning, in his own newspaper, upon his
+pet trust.  But his busy mind was not too occupied to return the
+salutes of the traffic policemen who cleared the way for him.  Or,
+by some genius of memory, to recall the fact that it was on this
+morning young Spear was to be sentenced for theft.  It was a
+charming morning.  The spring was at full tide, and the air was
+sweet and clean.  Mr. Thorndike considered whimsically that to send
+a man to jail with the memory of such a morning clinging to him was
+adding a year to his sentence.  He regretted he had not given the
+probation officer a stronger letter.  He remembered the young man
+now, and favorably.  A shy, silent youth, deft in work, and at
+other times conscious and embarrassed.  But that, on the part of a
+stenographer, in the presence of the Wisest Man in Wall Street, was
+not unnatural.  On occasions, Mr. Thorndike had put even royalty--
+frayed, impecunious royalty, on the lookout for a loan--at its
+ease.
+
+The hood of the car was down, and the taste of the air, warmed by
+the sun, was grateful.  It was at this time, a year before, that
+young Spear picked the spring flowers to take to his mother.  A
+year from now where would young Spear be?
+
+It was characteristic of the great man to act quickly, so quickly
+that his friends declared he was a slave to impulse.  It was these
+same impulses, leading so invariably to success, that made his
+enemies call him the Wisest Man.  He leaned forward and touched the
+chauffeur's shoulder.  "Stop at the Court of General Sessions," he
+commanded.  What he proposed to do would take but a few minutes.  A
+word, a personal word from him to the district attorney, or the
+judge, would be enough.  He recalled that a Sunday Special had once
+calculated that the working time of Arnold Thorndike brought him in
+two hundred dollars a minute.  At that rate, keeping Spear out of
+prison would cost a thousand dollars.
+
+
+Out of the sunshine Mr. Thorndike stepped into the gloom of an
+echoing rotunda, shut in on every side, hung by balconies, lit,
+many stories overhead, by a dirty skylight.  The place was damp,
+the air acrid with the smell of stale tobacco juice, and foul with
+the presence of many unwashed humans.  A policeman, chewing
+stolidly, nodded toward an elevator shaft, and other policemen
+nodded him further on to the office of the district attorney.
+There Arnold Thorndike breathed more freely.  He was again among
+his own people.  He could not help but appreciate the dramatic
+qualities of the situation; that the richest man in Wall Street
+should appear in person to plead for a humble and weaker brother.
+He knew he could not escape recognition, his face was too well
+known, but, he trusted, for the sake of Spear, the reporters would
+make no display of his visit.  With a deprecatory laugh, he
+explained why he had come.  But the outburst of approbation he had
+anticipated did not follow.
+
+The district attorney ran his finger briskly down a printed card.
+"Henry Spear," he exclaimed, "that's your man.  Part Three, Judge
+Fallon.  Andrews is in that court."  He walked to the door of his
+private office.  "Andrews!" he called.
+
+He introduced an alert, broad-shouldered young man of years of much
+indiscretion and with a charming and inconsequent manner.
+
+"Mr. Thorndike is interested in Henry Spear, coming up for sentence
+in Part Three this morning.  Wants to speak for him.  Take him over
+with you."
+
+The district attorney shook hands quickly, and retreated to his
+private office.  Mr. Andrews took out a cigarette and, as he
+crossed the floor, lit it.
+
+"Come with me," he commanded.  Somewhat puzzled, slightly annoyed,
+but enjoying withal the novelty of the environment and the curtness
+of his reception, Mr. Thorndike followed.  He decided that, in his
+ignorance, he had wasted his own time and that of the prosecuting
+attorney.  He should at once have sent in his card to the judge.
+As he understood it, Mr. Andrews was now conducting him to that
+dignitary, and, in a moment, he would be free to return to his own
+affairs, which were the affairs of two continents.  But Mr. Andrews
+led him to an office, bare and small, and offered him a chair, and
+handed him a morning newspaper.  There were people waiting in the
+room; strange people, only like those Mr. Thorndike had seen on
+ferry-boats.  They leaned forward toward young Mr. Andrews,
+fawning, their eyes wide with apprehension.
+
+Mr. Thorndike refused the newspaper.  "I thought I was going to see
+the judge," he suggested.
+
+"Court doesn't open for a few minutes yet," said the assistant
+district attorney.  "Judge is always late, anyway."
+
+Mr. Thorndike suppressed an exclamation.  He wanted to protest, but
+his clear mind showed him that there was nothing against which,
+with reason, he could protest.  He could not complain because these
+people were not apparently aware of the sacrifice he was making.
+He had come among them to perform a kindly act.  He recognized that
+he must not stultify it by a show of irritation.  He had
+precipitated himself into a game of which he did not know the
+rules.  That was all.  Next time he would know better.  Next time
+he would send a clerk.  But he was not without a sense of humor,
+and the situation as it now was forced upon him struck him as
+amusing.  He laughed good-naturedly and reached for the desk
+telephone.
+
+"May I use this?" he asked.  He spoke to the Wall Street office.
+He explained he would be a few minutes late.  He directed what
+should be done if the market opened in a certain way.  He gave
+rapid orders on many different matters, asked to have read to him a
+cablegram he expected from Petersburg, and one from Vienna.
+
+"They answer each other," was his final instruction.  "It looks
+like peace."
+
+Mr. Andrews with genial patience had remained silent.  Now he
+turned upon his visitors.  A Levantine, burly, unshaven, and
+soiled, towered truculently above him.  Young Mr. Andrews with his
+swivel chair tilted back, his hands clasped behind his head, his
+cigarette hanging from his lips, regarded the man dispassionately.
+
+"You gotta hell of a nerve to come to see me," he commented
+cheerfully.  To Mr. Thorndike, the form of greeting was novel.  So
+greatly did it differ from the procedure of his own office, that he
+listened with interest.
+
+"Was it you," demanded young Andrews, in a puzzled tone, "or your
+brother who tried to knife me?"  Mr. Thorndike, unaccustomed to
+cross the pavement to his office unless escorted by bank messengers
+and plain-clothes men, felt the room growing rapidly smaller; the
+figure of the truculent Greek loomed to heroic proportions.  The
+hand of the banker went vaguely to his chin, and from there fell to
+his pearl pin, which he hastily covered.
+
+"Get out!" said young Andrews, "and don't show your face here--"
+
+The door slammed upon the flying Greek.  Young Andrews swung his
+swivel chair so that, over his shoulder, he could see Mr.
+Thorndike.  "I don't like his face," he explained.
+
+A kindly eyed, sad woman with a basket on her knee smiled upon
+Andrews with the familiarity of an old acquaintance.
+
+"Is that woman going to get a divorce from my son," she asked, "now
+that he's in trouble?"
+
+"Now that he's in Sing Sing?" corrected Mr. Andrews.  "I HOPE so!
+She deserves it.  That son of yours, Mrs. Bernard," he declared
+emphatically, "is no good!"
+
+The brutality shocked Mr. Thorndike.  For the woman he felt a
+thrill of sympathy, but at once saw that it was superfluous.  From
+the secure and lofty heights of motherhood, Mrs. Bernard smiled
+down upon the assistant district attorney as upon a naughty child.
+She did not even deign a protest.  She continued merely to smile.
+The smile reminded Thorndike of the smile on the face of a mother
+in a painting by Murillo he had lately presented to the chapel in
+the college he had given to his native town.
+
+"That son of yours," repeated young Andrews, "is a leech.  He's
+robbed you, robbed his wife.  Best thing I ever did for YOU was to
+send him up the river."
+
+The mother smiled upon him beseechingly.
+
+"Could you give me a pass?" she said.
+
+Young Andrews flung up his hands and appealed to Thorndike.
+
+"Isn't that just like a mother?" he protested.  "That son of hers
+has broken her heart, tramped on her, cheated her; hasn't left her
+a cent; and she comes to me for a pass, so she can kiss him through
+the bars!  And I'll bet she's got a cake for him in that basket!"
+
+The mother laughed happily; she knew now she would get the pass.
+
+"Mothers," explained Mr. Andrews, from the depth of his wisdom,
+"are all like that; your mother, my mother.  If you went to jail,
+your mother would be just like that."
+
+Mr. Thorndike bowed his head politely.  He had never considered
+going to jail, or whether, if he did, his mother would bring him
+cake in a basket.  Apparently there were many aspects and accidents
+of life not included in his experience.
+
+Young Andrews sprang to his feet, and, with the force of a hose
+flushing a gutter, swept his soiled visitors into the hall.
+
+"Come on," he called to the Wisest Man, "the court is open."
+
+
+In the corridors were many people, and with his eyes on the broad
+shoulders of the assistant district attorney, Thorndike pushed his
+way through them.  The people who blocked his progress were of the
+class unknown to him.  Their looks were anxious, furtive,
+miserable.  They stood in little groups, listening eagerly to a
+sharp-faced lawyer, or, in sullen despair, eying each other.  At a
+door a tipstaff laid his hand roughly on the arm of Mr. Thorndike.
+
+"That's all right, Joe," called young Mr. Andrews, "he's with ME."
+They entered the court and passed down an aisle to a railed
+enclosure in which were high oak chairs.  Again, in his effort to
+follow, Mr. Thorndike was halted, but the first tipstaff came to
+his rescue.  "All right," he signalled, "he's with Mr. Andrews."
+
+Mr. Andrews pointed to one of the oak chairs.  "You sit there," he
+commanded, "it's reserved for members of the bar, but it's all
+right.  You're with ME."
+
+Distinctly annoyed, slightly bewildered, the banker sank between
+the arms of a chair.  He felt he had lost his individuality.
+Andrews had become his sponsor.  Because of Andrews he was
+tolerated.  Because Andrews had a pull he was permitted to sit as
+an equal among police-court lawyers.  No longer was he Arnold
+Thorndike.  He was merely the man "with Mr. Andrews."
+
+Then even Andrews abandoned him.  "The judge'll be here in a
+minute, now," said the assistant district attorney, and went inside
+a railed enclosure in front of the judge's bench.  There he greeted
+another assistant district attorney whose years were those of even
+greater indiscretion than the years of Mr. Andrews.  Seated on the
+rail, with their hands in their pockets and their backs turned to
+Mr. Thorndike, they laughed and talked together.  The subject of
+their discourse was one Mike Donlin, as he appeared in vaudeville.
+
+To Mr. Thorndike it was evident that young Andrews had entirely
+forgotten him.  He arose, and touched his sleeve.  With infinite
+sarcasm Mr. Thorndike began: "My engagements are not pressing, but--"
+
+A court attendant beat with his palm upon the rail.
+
+"Sit down!" whispered Andrews.  "The judge is coming."
+
+Mr. Thorndike sat down.
+
+The court attendant droned loudly words Mr. Thorndike could not
+distinguish.  There was a rustle of silk, and from a door behind
+him the judge stalked past.  He was a young man, the type of the
+Tammany politician.  On his shrewd, alert, Irish-American features
+was an expression of unnatural gloom.  With a smile Mr. Thorndike
+observed that it was as little suited to the countenance of the
+young judge as was the robe to his shoulders.  Mr. Thorndike was
+still smiling when young Andrews leaned over the rail.
+
+"Stand up!" he hissed.  Mr. Thorndike stood up.
+
+After the court attendant had uttered more unintelligible words,
+every one sat down; and the financier again moved hurriedly to the
+rail.
+
+"I would like to speak to him now before he begins," he whispered.
+"I can't wait."
+
+Mr. Andrews stared in amazement.  The banker had not believed the
+young man could look so serious.
+
+"Speak to him, NOW!" exclaimed the district attorney.  'You've got
+to wait till your man comes up.  If you speak to the judge, NOW--"
+The voice of Andrews faded away in horror.
+
+Not knowing in what way he had offended, but convinced that it was
+only by the grace of Andrews he had escaped a dungeon, Mr.
+Thorndike retreated to his arm-chair.
+
+
+The clock on the wall showed him that, already, he had given to
+young Spear one hour and a quarter.  The idea was preposterous.  No
+one better than himself knew what his time was really worth.  In
+half an hour there was a board meeting; later, he was to hold a
+post mortem on a railroad; at every moment questions were being
+asked by telegraph, by cable, questions that involved the credit of
+individuals, of firms, of even the country.  And the one man who
+could answer them was risking untold sums only that he might say a
+good word for an idle apprentice.  Inside the railed enclosure a
+lawyer was reading a typewritten speech.  He assured his honor that
+he must have more time to prepare his case.  It was one of immense
+importance.  The name of a most respectable business house was
+involved, and a sum of no less than nine hundred dollars.  Nine
+hundred dollars!  The contrast struck Mr. Thorndike's sense of
+humor full in the centre.  Unknowingly, he laughed, and found
+himself as conspicuous as though he had appeared suddenly in his
+night-clothes.  The tipstaffs beat upon the rail, the lawyer he had
+interrupted uttered an indignant exclamation, Andrews came
+hurriedly toward him, and the young judge slowly turned his head.
+
+"Those persons," he said, "who cannot respect the dignity of this
+court will leave it."  As he spoke, with his eyes fixed on those of
+Mr. Thorndike, the latter saw that the young judge had suddenly
+recognized him.  But the fact of his identity did not cause the
+frown to relax or the rebuke to halt unuttered.  In even, icy tones
+the judge continued: "And it is well they should remember that the
+law is no respecter of persons and that the dignity of this court
+will be enforced, no matter who the offender may happen to be."
+
+Andrews slipped into the chair beside Mr. Thorndike, and grinned
+sympathetically.
+
+"Sorry!" he whispered.  "Should have warned you.  We won't be long
+now," he added encouragingly.  "As soon as this fellow finishes his
+argument, the judge'll take up the sentences.  Your man seems to
+have other friends; Isaacs & Sons are here, and the type-writer
+firm who taught him; but what YOU say will help most.  It won't be
+more than a couple of hours now."
+
+"A couple of hours!"  Mr. Thorndike raged inwardly.  A couple of
+hours in this place where he had been publicly humiliated.  He
+smiled, a thin, shark-like smile.  Those who made it their business
+to study his expressions, on seeing it, would have fled.  Young
+Andrews, not being acquainted with the moods of the great man,
+added cheerfully: "By one o'clock, anyway."
+
+Mr. Thorndike began grimly to pull on his gloves.  For all he cared
+now young Spear could go hang.  Andrews nudged his elbow.
+
+"See that old lady in the front row?" he whispered.  "That's Mrs.
+Spear.  What did I tell you; mothers are all alike.  She's not
+taken her eyes off you since court opened.  She knows you're her
+one best bet."
+
+Impatiently Mr. Thorndike raised his head.  He saw a little, white-
+haired woman who stared at him.  In her eyes was the same look he
+had seen in the eyes of men who, at times of panic, fled to him,
+beseeching, entreating, forcing upon him what was left of the wreck
+of their fortunes, if only he would save their honor.
+
+"And here come the prisoners," Andrews whispered.  "See Spear?
+Third man from the last."  A long line, guarded in front and rear,
+shuffled into the court-room, and, as ordered, ranged themselves
+against the wall.  Among them were old men and young boys, well
+dressed, clever-looking rascals, collarless tramps, fierce-eyed
+aliens, smooth-shaven, thin-lipped Broadwayards--and Spear.
+
+Spear, his head hanging, with lips white and cheeks ashen, and his
+eyes heavy with shame.
+
+Mr. Thorndike had risen, and, in farewell, was holding out his hand
+to Andrews.  He turned, and across the court-room the eyes of the
+financier and the stenographer met.  At the sight of the great man,
+Spear flushed crimson, and then his look of despair slowly
+disappeared; and into his eyes there came incredulously hope and
+gratitude.  He turned his head suddenly to the wall.
+
+Mr. Thorndike stood irresolute, and then sank back into his chair.
+
+The first man in the line was already at the railing, and the
+questions put to him by the judge were being repeated to him by the
+other assistant district attorney and a court attendant.  His
+muttered answers were in turn repeated to the judge.
+
+"Says he's married, naturalized citizen, Lutheran Church, die-
+cutter by profession."
+
+The probation officer, her hands filled with papers, bustled
+forward and whispered.
+
+"Mrs. Austin says," continued the district attorney, "she's looked
+into this case, and asks to have the man turned over to her.  He
+has a wife and three children; has supported them for five years."
+
+"Is the wife in court?" the judge said.
+
+A thin, washed-out, pretty woman stood up, and clasped her hands in
+front of her.
+
+"Has this man been a good husband to you, madam?" asked the young
+judge.
+
+The woman broke into vehement assurances.  No man could have been a
+better husband.  Would she take him back?  Indeed she would take
+him back.  She held out her hands as though she would physically
+drag her husband from the pillory.
+
+The judge bowed toward the probation officer, and she beckoned the
+prisoner to her.
+
+Other men followed, and in the fortune of each Mr. Thorndike found
+himself, to his surprise, taking a personal interest.  It was as
+good as a play.  It reminded him of the Sicilians he had seen in
+London in their little sordid tragedies.  Only these actors were
+appearing in their proper persons in real dramas of a life he did
+not know, but which appealed to something that had been long
+untouched, long in disuse.  It was an uncomfortable sensation that
+left him restless because, as he appreciated, it needed expression,
+an outlet.  He found this, partially, in praising, through Andrews,
+the young judge who had publicly rebuked him.  Mr. Thorndike found
+him astute, sane; his queries intelligent, his comments just.  And
+this probation officer, she, too, was capable, was she not?
+Smiling at his interest in what to him was an old story, the
+younger man nodded.
+
+"I like her looks," whispered the great man.  "Like her clear eyes
+and clean skin.  She strikes me as able, full of energy, and yet
+womanly.  These men when they come under her charge," he insisted,
+eagerly, "need money to start again, don't they?"  He spoke
+anxiously.  He believed he had found the clew to his restlessness.
+It was a desire to help; to be of use to these failures who had
+fallen and who were being lifted to their feet.  Andrews looked at
+him curiously.  "Anything you give her," he answered, "would be
+well invested."
+
+"If you will tell me her name and address?" whispered the banker.
+He was much given to charity, but it had been perfunctory, it was
+extended on the advice of his secretary.  In helping here, he felt
+a genial glow of personal pleasure.  It was much more satisfactory
+than giving an Old Master to his private chapel.
+
+In the rear of the court-room there was a scuffle that caused every
+one to turn and look.  A man, who had tried to force his way past
+the tipstaffs, was being violently ejected, and, as he disappeared,
+he waved a paper toward Mr. Thorndike.  The banker recognized him
+as his chief clerk.  Andrews rose anxiously.  "That man wanted to
+get to you.  I'll see what it is.  Maybe it's important."
+
+Mr. Thorndike pulled him back.
+
+"Maybe it is," he said dryly.  "But I can't see him now, I'm busy."
+
+
+Slowly the long line of derelicts, of birds of prey, of sorry, weak
+failures, passed before the seat of judgment.  Mr. Thorndike had
+moved into a chair nearer to the rail, and from time to time made a
+note upon the back of an envelope.  He had forgotten the time or
+had chosen to disregard it.  So great was his interest that he had
+forgotten the particular derelict he had come to serve, until Spear
+stood almost at his elbow.
+
+Thorndike turned eagerly to the judge, and saw that he was
+listening to a rotund, gray little man with beady, bird-like eyes
+who, as he talked, bowed and gesticulated.  Behind him stood a
+younger man, a more modern edition of the other.  He also bowed
+and, behind gold eye-glasses, smiled ingratiatingly.
+
+The judge nodded, and leaning forward, for a few moments fixed his
+eyes upon the prisoner.
+
+"You are a very fortunate young man," he said.  He laid his hand
+upon a pile of letters.  "When you were your own worst enemy, your
+friends came to help you.  These letters speak for you; your
+employers, whom you robbed, have pleaded with me in your favor.  It
+is urged, in your behalf, that at the time you committed the crime
+of which you are found guilty, you were intoxicated.  In the eyes
+of the law, that is no excuse.  Some men can drink and keep their
+senses.  It appears you can not.  When you drink you are a menace
+to yourself--and, as is shown by this crime, to the community.
+Therefore, you must not drink.  In view of the good character to
+which your friends have testified, and on the condition that you do
+not touch liquor, I will not sentence you to jail, but will place
+you in charge of the probation officer."
+
+The judge leaned back in his chair and beckoned to Mr. Andrews.  It
+was finished.  Spear was free, and from different parts of the
+courtroom people were moving toward the door.  Their numbers showed
+that the friends of the young man had been many.  Mr. Thorndike
+felt a certain twinge of disappointment.  Even though the result
+relieved and pleased him, he wished, in bringing it about, he had
+had some part.
+
+He begrudged to Isaacs & Sons the credit of having given Spear his
+liberty.  His morning had been wasted.  He had neglected his own
+interests, and in no way assisted those of Spear.  He was moving
+out of the railed enclosure when Andrews called him by name.
+
+"His honor," he said impressively, "wishes to speak to you."
+
+The judge leaned over his desk and shook Mr. Thorndike by the hand.
+Then he made a speech.  The speech was about public-spirited
+citizens who, to the neglect of their own interests, came to assist
+the ends of justice, and fellow-creatures in misfortune.  He
+purposely spoke in a loud voice, and every one stopped to listen.
+
+"The law, Mr. Thorndike, is not vindictive," he said.  "It wishes
+only to be just.  Nor can it be swayed by wealth or political or
+social influences.  But when there is good in a man, I, personally,
+want to know it, and when gentlemen like yourself, of your standing
+in this city, come here to speak a good word for a man, we would
+stultify the purpose of justice if we did not listen.  I thank you
+for coming, and I wish more of our citizens were as unselfish and
+public-spirited."
+
+It was all quite absurd and most embarrassing, but inwardly Mr.
+Thorndike glowed with pleasure.  It was a long time since any one
+had had the audacity to tell him he had done well.  From the
+friends of Spear there was a ripple of applause, which no tipstaff
+took it upon himself to suppress, and to the accompaniment of this,
+Mr. Thorndike walked to the corridor.  He was pleased with himself
+and with his fellow-men.  He shook hands with Isaacs & Sons, and
+congratulated them upon their public spirit, and the type-writer
+firm upon their public spirit.  And then he saw Spear standing
+apart regarding him doubtfully.
+
+Spear did not offer his hand, but Mr. Thorndike took it, and shook
+it, and said: "I want to meet your mother."
+
+And when Mrs. Spear tried to stop sobbing long enough to tell him
+how happy she was, and how grateful, he instead told her what a
+fine son she had, and that he remembered when Spear used to carry
+flowers to town for her.  And she remembered it, too, and thanked
+him for the flowers.  And he told Spear, when Isaacs & Sons went
+bankrupt, which at the rate they were giving away their money to
+the Hebrew Hospital would be very soon, Spear must come back to
+him.  And Isaacs & Sons were delighted at the great man's
+pleasantry, and afterward repeated it many times, calling upon each
+other to bear witness, and Spear felt as though some one had given
+him a new backbone, and Andrews, who was guiding Thorndike out of
+the building, was thinking to himself what a great confidence man
+had been lost when Thorndike became a banker.
+
+
+The chief clerk and two bank messengers were waiting by the
+automobile with written calls for help from the office.  They
+pounced upon the banker and almost lifted him into the car.
+
+"There's still time!" panted the chief clerk.
+
+"There is not!" answered Mr. Thorndike.  His tone was rebellious,
+defiant.  It carried all the authority of a spoiled child of
+fortune.  "I've wasted most of this day," he declared, "and I
+intend to waste the rest of it.  Andrews," he called, "jump in, and
+I'll give you a lunch at Sherry's."
+
+The vigilant protector of the public dashed back into the building.
+
+"Wait till I get my hat!" he called.
+
+As the two truants rolled up the avenue the spring sunshine warmed
+them, the sense of duties neglected added zest to their holiday,
+and young Mr. Andrews laughed aloud.
+
+Mr. Thorndike raised his eyebrows inquiringly.  "I was wondering,"
+said Andrews, "how much it cost you to keep Spear out of jail?"
+
+"I don't care," said the great man guiltily; "it was worth it."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext A Wasted Day, by Richard Harding Davis
+
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