Page:American Boy's Life of William McKinley.djvu/154

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AMERICAN BOYS' LIFE

CHAPTER XIII


A First Case and its Result—The Miserly Soldier and the Trick he played—How McKinley squared the Account—The Man with the Twisted Leg


For the rest of that day William McKinley locked himself in his "den," thus to deny himself to all possible callers. He read the documents intrusted to him carefully, and then began to study all the details of the case, until he had them at his fingers' ends. Then he took down his volumes on law and went deeper and deeper into the matter. Night came on, and he lit his lamp and continued to study. All the other lawyers in the big building went home and the place became as quiet as a graveyard.

It was two o'clock before he threw down the pen with which he had been making notes on his line of argument. The case was now clear to him, and he was ready, nay eager, to present it to the court. Utterly