“Yes, I see you. But the outside of you doesn't tell me what I want to know.”
“Look here, I have let myself be tied up most devilishly by a train of circumstances that you started, young man. I was minding my own private business until a little while ago.”
“You're a moderately humble citizen, judged from outside looks just now. How did I allow myself to be pulled in as I've been?”
The young man's smile departed. “I asked myself that question a little while ago, sir, after I was pulled in, for I am a stranger--not even a voter here.”
“I was led in by the hand of a helpless child--a poor little orphan girl whom I carried to the cemetery on my knees--a martyr--poisoned by that Consolidated water.”
The lawyer was stirred by the intensity of feeling which the man's tones betrayed.
“And it was borne in upon me afresh, Mr. Converse, that the philosophy of the causes by which God moves this world of ours will never be understood by man.”
“See here,” snapped the son of the war governor, “take off your mask, Walker Farr! There's something behind it I want to see. You are an educated gentleman! What are you? Where did you come from?”
Again Farr spread out his palms and was silent.
“You are right about causes. You are one in my case. There may be some fatalism in me--but I'm impelled to use you in a great fight that I feel honor-bound to take up. Now be frank!”
“For all use you can make of me, Mr. Converse, my life starts from the minute I picked that little girl up from the floor of a tenement-house in this city. For what I was _before_ is so different from what I am _now_ that I cannot mix that identity with my affairs.”
“But I cannot take a man into a matter like this unless I know all about him.”
Farr rose and bowed. “I'm sorry you can't accept me at face value, sir. I'm very sorry, because I'd like to serve under such a commander as you. However, I understand your position. I don't blame you. The rule of the world is pretty binding: know a man before you associate with him. But I am as I am. There's nothing more to be said.”
“You sit down,” commanded Converse. “This is a case where rules of the world can be suspended. For I need the kind of man who dares to face even Symonds Dodd in his office and tell him what he is. Oh, I have just come from there,” he explained in reply to Farr's stare. “He told me.”