ur Honor!--a delay of only twenty-four hours in which to prepare a
rejoinder to this petition--to allegations of such astounding gravity?" he
began, shocked into action by the very ungraspable magnitude of the thing.

"What more could you ask, Mr. Hunnicott?" said the judge, mildly. "You
have already had a full measure of delay on the original petition. Yet I
am willing to extend the time if you can come to an agreement with Mr.
Hawk, here."

Hunnicott knew the hopelessness of that and did not make the attempt.
Instead, he essayed a new line of objection.

"The time would be long enough if Gaston were the headquarters of the
company, your Honor. But in such a grave and important charge as this
amended petition brings, our general counsel should appear in person,
and----"

"You are the company's attorney, Mr. Hunnicott," said the judge, dryly;
"and you have hitherto been deemed competent to conduct the case in behalf
of the defendant. I am unwilling to work a hardship to any one, but I can
not entertain your protest. The preliminary hearing will be at three
o'clock to-morrow."

Hunnicott knew when he was definitely at the string's end; and when he was
out of the judge's room and the Court House, he made a dash for his
office, dry-lipped and panting. Ten minutes sufficed for the writing of a
telegram to Kent, and he was half-way down to the station with it when it
occurred to him that it would never do to trust the incendiary thing to
the wires in plain English. There was a little-used cipher code in his
desk provided for just such emergencies, and back he went to labor
sweating over the task of securing secrecy at the expense of the precious
minutes of time. Wherefore, it was about four o'clock when he handed the
telegram to the station operator, and adjured him by all that was good and
great not to delay its sending.

It was just here he made his first and only slip, since he did not stay to
see the thing done. It chanced that the regular day operator was off on
leave of absence, and his substitute, a young man from the
train-despatcher's office, was a person who considered the company wires
an exclusive appanage of the train service department. At the moment of
Hunnicott's assault he was taking an order for Number 17; and observing
that the lawyer's cipher "rush" covered four closely written pages, he
hung it upon the sending hook with a malediction on the legal department
for burdening the wires with its mail co