"Very kind of you, indeed," Luke murmured.
"I thought," said the Judge, "that you handled that Maretti case excellently, and the Dow trial, too; you showed an original cleverness there. More than that, Mr. Huber, you showed promise. There has been a great deal of promise in your professional work, and I thought I detected the same promise in the reports of your political speeches. With influential friends—for, of course, everybody needs influential friends in these days: people of real and solid standing—you ought to go far."
"Now," the Judge pursued, "I see by the early evening papers you may be offered the candidacy for District-Attorney on the Municipal League ticket."
"I believe there is some talk of that, Judge."
"Well, we need such a movement as this reform movement: we need it badly. With proper backing, you ought to win. With proper backing, of course."
Luke gave no sign of hearing this. Quite out of the air he drawled:
"I suppose you came about those letters, Judge Stein?"
For all the disturbance that he produced, he might as well have said that it was a pleasant day, or that he expected rain. When his eyes at this question were raised to meet the Judge’s, the benevolent eyes of the Judge did not quiver: like his voice, they were steady and deliberate.
"Yes," said the Judge, "and I had them in mind when I spoke of your career. Now, Mr. Huber, my friends think, and I think, that you have been a little hasty and unreasonable because—and remember, it is an old man who tells you so—you are still rather young. But because I know you are an able young man, I have told them I was sure you would see your haste and unreasonableness when you came to consider the matter. As their friend and as a lawyer who has watched your career and remembers his own start in life, I undertook to say so to you and to offer my advice."
Luke’s eyelids were again lowered. His hands were clasped in his lap. To a less astute man than Stein, he might have seemed asleep.
"I shall be glad," continued Stein, "if I can help you out of your embarrassing position."
"Who are your friends, Judge?" asked Luke.
"Come, come, Mr. Huber," he said; "you don’t expect me to mention names, I know. All I will say on that point—all you can justly ask me to say—is that I don’t come from them in my professional capacity. They haven’t retained me to do this. They haven’t even asked me to do it. I am acting entirely of my own volition, and on my own initiative, out of good will for all the parties concerned and not least of all for you."