By Advice of Counsel
"I wonder," hazarded Miss Wiggin thoughtfully, "if there isn't some
sociological law about crimes, like the law of diminishing returns in
physics?"
"The law of what?"
"Why, the law that the greater the force or effort applied to anything,"
she explained a little vaguely, "the greater the resistance becomes,
until the effort doesn't accomplish anything; increased speed in a
warship, for instance."
"What's that got to do with crime?"
"Why, the more statutes you pass and more new crimes you create the
harder it becomes to enforce obedience to them, until finally you can't
enforce them at all."
"That is rather a profound analogy," observed Mr. Tutt. "It might well
repay study."
"Miss Wiggin has no corner on analogies," chirped Tutt. "Passing
statutes creating new crimes is like printing paper money without
anything back of it; in the one case there isn't really any more money
than there was before and in the other there isn't really any more crime
either."
"Only it makes more business for us."
"I've got another idea," continued Tutt airily, "and that is that crime
is a good thing. Not because it means progress or any bunk like that,
but because unless you had a certain amount of crime, and also criminal
lawyers to attack the law, the state would never find out the weaknesses
in its statutes. Therefore the more crime there is the more the
protective power of the state is built up, just as the fever engendered
by vaccine renders the human body immune from smallpox! Eh, what?"
"I never heard such nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Wiggin. "Do let me give
you some more tea! Eh, what?"
But at that moment Willie announced that Mr. Rutherford Wells was
calling to see Mr. Tutt and tea was hastily adjourned. Half an hour
later the old lawyer rang for Bonnie Doon.
"Bonnie," he said, "one of our clients has been complained against by
her next-door neighbor, a got-rich-quick lady, for obstructing the
street with her motor. It's obviously a case of social envy, hatred and
malice. Just take a run up there in the morning, give Mrs. Pierpont
Pumpelly and her premises the once-over and let me know of any
violations you happen to observe. I don't care how technical they are,
either."
"All right, Mr. Tutt," answered Bonnie. "I get you. Isn't there a new
ordinance governing the filling of garbage cans?"
"I think there is," nodded Mr. Tutt. "And meantime I think I'll drop
over and see Judge O'Hare."
* * * * *
"I'll settle her hash for her, the hussy!" declared Mrs. Pumpelly to
her husband at dinner the following evening. "I'll teach her to insult
decent people and violate the law. Just because her husband belongs to a
swell club she thinks she can do as she likes! But I'll show her! Wait
till I get her in court to-morrow!"
"Well, of course, Edna, I'll stand back of you and all that," Pierpont
assured her. "No, thank you, Simmons, I don't wish any more 'voly vong.'
But I'd hate to see you get all messed up in a police court!"
"Me--messed up!" she exclaimed haughtily. "I guess I can take care of
myself most anywheres--good and plenty!"
"Of course you can, dearie!" he protested in a soothing tone. "But these
shyster lawyers who hang around those places--you 'member Jim O'Leary
out home to Athens? Well, they don't know a lady when they see one, and
they wouldn't care if they did; and they'll try and pry into your past
life--"
"I haven't got any past life, and you know it too, Pierpont Pumpelly!"
she retorted hotly. "I'm a respectable, law-abidin' woman, I am. I never
broke a law in all my days--"
"Excuse me, madam," interposed Simmons, with whom the second footman had
just held a whispered conference behind the screen, "but James informs
me that there is a police hofficer awaiting to see you in the front
'all."
"To see me?" ejaculated Mrs. Pumpelly.
"Yes, madam."
"I suppose it's about to-morrow. Tell him to call round about nine
o'clock in the morning."
"'E says 'e must see you to-night, ma'am," annotated James excitedly.
"And 'e acted most hobnoxious to me!"
"Oh, he acted obnoxious, did he?" remarked Mrs. Pumpelly airily. "What
was he obnoxious about?"
"'E 'as a paper 'e says 'e wants to serve on you personal," answered
James in agitation. "'E says if you will hallow 'm to step into the
dining-room 'e won't take a minute."
"Perhaps we'd better let him come in," mildly suggested Pierpont. "It's
always best to keep on good terms with the police."
"But I haven't broken any law," repeated Mrs. Pumpelly blankly.
"Maybe you have without knowin' it," commented her husband.
"Why, Pierpont Pumpelly, you know I never did such a thing!" she
retorted.
"Well, let's have him in, anyway," he urged. "I can't digest my food
with him sitting out there in the hall."
Mrs. Pumpelly took control of the situation.
"Have the man in, Simmons!" she directed grandly.
And thereupon entered Officer Patrick Roony. Politely Officer Roony
removed his cap, politely he unbuttoned several yards of blue overcoat
and fumbled in the caverns beneath. Eventually he brought forth a square
sheet of paper--it had a certain familiarity of aspect for Mrs.
Pumpelly--and handed it to her.
"Sorry to disturb you, ma'am," he apologized, "but I was instructed to
make sure and serve you personal."
"That's all right! That's all right!" said Pierpont with an effort at
bonhomie. "The--er--butler will give you a highball if you say so."
"Oh, boy, lead me to it!" murmured Roony in the most approved manner of
East Fourteenth Street. "Which way?"
"Come with me!" intoned Simmons with the exalted gesture of an
archbishop conducting an ecclesiastical ceremonial.
"What does it say?" asked her husband hurriedly as the butler led the
cop to it.
"Sh-h!" warned Mrs. Pumpelly. "James, kindly retire!"
James retired, and the lady examined the paper by the tempered light of
the shaded candles surrounding what was left of the "voly vong."
"Who ever heard of such a thing?" she cried. "Just listen here,
Pierpont!"
"CITY MAGISTRATE'S COURT, CITY OF NEW YORK
"In the name of the people of the State of New York
"To 'Maggie' Pumpelly, the name 'Maggie' being fictitious:
"You are hereby summoned to appear before the ------ District
Magistrate's Court, Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, on the tenth
day of May, 1920, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, to answer to the
charge made against you by William Mulcahy for violation of Section One,
Article Two, of the Police Traffic Regulations in that on May 7, 1920,
you permitted a vehicle owned or controlled by you to stop with its left
side to the curb on a street other than a one-way traffic street; and
also for violation of Section Seventeen, Article Two of Chapter
Twenty-four of the Code of Ordinances of the City of New York in that on
the date aforesaid, being the owner of a vehicle subject to Subdivision
One of said section and riding therein, you caused or permitted the same
to proceed at a rate of speed greater than four miles an hour in turning
corner of intersecting highways, to wit, Park Avenue and Seventy-third
Street; and upon your failure to appear at the time and place herein
mentioned you are liable to a fine of not exceeding fifty dollars or to
imprisonment of not exceeding ten days or both.
"Dated 7th day of May, 1920.
"PATRICK ROONY, Police Officer,
"Police Precinct ----,
"New York City.
"Attest: JOHN J. JONES,
"Chief City Magistrate."
"Well, I never!" she exploded. "What rubbish! Four miles an hour! And
'Maggie'--as if everybody didn't know my name was Edna!"
"The whole thing looks a bit phony to me!" muttered Pierpont, worried
over the possibility of having wasted a slug of the real thing on an
unreal police officer. "Perhaps that feller wasn't a cop at all!"
"And who's William Mul-kay-hay?" she continued. "I don't know any such
person! You better call up Mr. Edgerton right away and see what the law
is."
"I hope he knows!" countered Mr. Pumpelly. "Four miles an hour--that's a
joke! A baby carriage goes faster than four miles an hour. You wouldn't
arrest a baby!"
"Well, call him up!" directed Mrs. Pumpelly. "Tell him he should come
right round over here."
The summons from his client interrupted Mr. Edgerton in the middle of an
expensive dinner at his club and he left it in no good humor. He didn't
like being ordered round like a servant the way Mrs. Pumpelly was
ordering him. It wasn't dignified. Moreover, a lawyer out of his office
was like a snail out of its shell--at a distinct disadvantage. You
couldn't just make an excuse to step into the next office for a moment
and ask somebody what the law was. The Edgertons always kept somebody in
an adjoining office who knew the law--many lawyers do.
On the Pumpelly stoop the attorney found standing an evil-looking and
very shabby person holding a paper in his hand, but he ignored him until
the grilled iron _cinquecento_ door swung open, revealing James, the
retiring second man.
Then, before he could enter, the shabby person pushed past him and asked
in a loud, vulgar tone: "Does Edna Pumpelly live here?"
James stiffened in the approved style of erect vertebrata.
"This is Madame Pierpont Pumpelly's residence," he replied with hauteur.
"Madam or no madam, just slip this to her," said the shabby one. "Happy
days!"
Mr. Wilfred Edgerton beneath the medieval tapestry of the Pumpelly
marble hall glanced at the dirty sheet in James' hand and, though
unfamiliar with the form of the document, perceived it to be a summons
issued on the application of one Henry J. Goldsmith and returnable next
day, for violating Section Two Hundred and Fifteen of Article Twelve of
Chapter Twenty of the Municipal Ordinances for keeping and maintaining a
certain bird, to wit, a cockatoo, which by its noise did disturb the
quiet and repose of a certain person in the vicinity to the detriment
of the health of such person, to wit, Henry J. Goldsmith, aforesaid, and
upon her failure to appear, and so on.
Wilfred had some sort of vague idea of a law about keeping birds, but he
couldn't exactly recall what it was. There was something incongruous
about Mrs. Pierpont Pumpelly keeping a cockatoo. What did anybody want
of a cockatoo? He concluded that it must be an ancestral hereditament
from Athens, Ohio. Nervously he ascended the stairs to what Edna called
the saloon.
"So you've come at last!" cried she. "Well, what have you got to say to
this? Is it against the law to go round a corner at more than four miles
an hour?"
Now, whereas Mr. Wilfred Edgerton could have told Mrs. Pumpelly the
"rule in Shelly's case" or explained the doctrine of _cy pres_, he had
never read the building code or the health ordinances or the traffic
regulations, and in the present instance the latter were to the point
while the former were not. Thus he was confronted with the disagreeable
alternative of admitting his ignorance or bluffing it through. He chose
the latter, unwisely.
"Of course not! Utter nonsense!" replied he blithely. "The lawful rate
of speed is at least fifteen miles an hour."
"Excuse me, madam," said James, appearing once more in the doorway. "A
man has just left this--er--paper at the area doorway."
Mrs. Pumpelly snatched it out of his hand.
"Well, of all things!" she gasped.
"To 'Bridget' Pumpelly," it began, "said first name 'Bridget' being
fictitious:
"You are hereby summoned to appear ... for violating Section Two
Hundred and Forty-eight of Article Twelve of Chapter Twenty of the
Health Ordinances in that you did upon the seventh day of May, 1920,
fail to keep a certain tin receptacle used for swill or garbage, in
shape and form a barrel, within the building occupied and owned by you