CHAPTER III
Events are consequential or inconsequential irrespective of their size. The wars of Troy were fought for a woman, and Charles VIII, of France, bumped his head against a stone doorway dnd died because he did not stoop low enough. And to descend from history down to my own poor chronicle, Mr. Cooke’s railroad case, my first experience at the bar of any gravity or magnitude, had tied to it a string of consequences then far beyond my guessing. The suit was my stepping-stone not only to a larger and more remunerative practice, but also, I believe, to the position of district attorney, which I attained shortly afterwards.
Mr. Cooke had laid out Mohair as ruthlessly as Napoleon planned the new Paris; though not, I regret to say, with a like genius. Fortunately Farrar interposed and saved the grounds, but there was no guardian angel to do a like turn for the house. Mr. Langdon Willis, of
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The Celebrity
Philadelphia, was the architect who had nomi.
nal charge of the building. He had regularly
submitted some dozen plans for Mr. Cooke’s
approval, which were as regularly rejected. My
client believed, in common with a great many
other people, that architects should be driven
and not followed, and was plainly resolved to
make this house the logical development of
many cherished ideas. It is not strange, there¬
fore, that the edifice was completed by a Chi¬
cago contractor who had less self-respect than
Mr. Willis, the latter having abruptly refused
to have his name tacked on to the work.
Mohair was finished and ready for occupation
in July, two years after the suit. I drove out
one day before Mr. Cooke’s arrival to look it
over. The grounds, where Farrar had had mat¬
ters pretty much his own way, to my mind
rivalled the best private parks in the East.
The stables were filled with a score or so of
Mr. Cooke’s best horses, brought hither in his
private cars, and the trotters were exercising
on the track.
The middle of June found Farrar and myself
at the Asquith Inn. It was Farrar’s custom to
go to Asquith in the summer, being near the
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