The Greatest Works of Melville Davisson Post: 40+ Titles in One Edition. Melville Davisson Post
and plaintiff, by accident, if I may so say. The principle of public policy is this: ex dolo malo non oritur actio. No court will lend its aid to a man who founds his cause of action upon an immoral or illegal act. If from the plaintiff's own statement or otherwise the cause of action appear to arise ex turpi causa, or the transgression of a positive law of this country, then the court says he has no right to be assisted. It is upon that ground the court goes, not for the sake of the defendant, but because it will not lend its aid to such a plaintiff.'
"This claim of the plaintiff to this action is unsound for the further reason that any promise, contract, or undertaking the performance of which would tend to promote, advance, or carry into effect an object or purpose which is unlawful, is itself void and will not maintain an action. The law which prohibits the end, will not lend its aid in promoting the means assigned to carry it into effect. Nor is it possible for an act contrary to law to be made the basis of a contract enforceable in courts of law. Hence when one lends money to another for the express purpose of enabling him to commit a specific unlawful act, and such act be afterwards committed by means of the aid so received, the lender is a particeps criminis, and the law will not aid him to recover money advanced for such a purpose, and much less would it assist him, if, as in this case he retained an interest in the result of the venture."
It was very unusual for counsel to interrupt the judge in the delivery of his opinion, but at this point the attorney for Martin arose.
"If your honor please," he said, "this court is taking away the remedy of the plaintiff, and permitting the wrong to stand. Does this court reverse the ancient doctrine upon which the theory of human justice has its eternal basis, the ancient doctrine that the law will always provide a remedy for a wrong?"
The faintest shadow of a smile flitted over the judicial face.
"That sage maxim: 'lex semper debit remédiant,'" answered the judge, "is a gigantic error couched in very good law Latin. The motion to exclude the evidence is sustained, and the jury will find a verdict for the defendants."
X
The Governor's machine marched gravely out of the Circuit Court of the United States and down the wide steps, the Major leading, the Executive following second, and the Honorable Ambercrombie Hergan bringing up the rear, every man as silent and as solemn as a Japanese diplomat. The machine passed through the great arched doorway and directly across the street to "The Happy Maria" saloon, an institution with a variegated past. The machine filed in through the door and lined up before the bar as mysteriously as a country delegation in a caucus.
The Bartender of "The Happy Maria" was a lame actor from St. Louis. When he turned and beheld the solemn array, he stepped back and tapped his forehead tragically with his fingers.
"Ha!" he muttered, "it is Ulfius and Brastias and Sir Bedivere."
To this no response was made, except that the Major raised his hand and pointed to the bottle of "Dougherty" reposing on the second shelf beside the box of "scrap" and the proprietor's pistol-belt. The bartender hurried forward, took down the bottle, placed three little glasses on the bar and began to fill them. When he came to the third glass, he paused and set down the bottle. A puzzled expression gathered on his face. He thrust his forefinger into his mouth and began to lisp:
"Be there two or be there three
In our king's companee?"
The Major turned just in time to catch a glimpse of the Governor as he vanished in a telegraph office next door; then he swung around toward the barkeeper with the dramatic abandon of a professional at a benefit.
"Pour on, good seneschal," he cried; "it is the man who would be married. He hastens with glad tidings to the well beloved. He will return."
Mrs. Van Barton
I
All this," said Randolph Mason," is the veriest nonsense."
The younger Mrs. Van Bartan straightened up in her chair and looked sharply at the counsellor. She was a woman of magnificent presence, with a great fleece of yellow hair, fine eyes, and regular, clear-cut features.
"Do you mean that it is not the truth?" she asked.
"Half truth," responded Mason.
"Then," said the woman, smiling, "it is only half nonsense."
"Madam," said Randolph Mason, "if you desire my aid, you must explain this entire matter. I do not choose to guess riddles."
"I have told you," began the young woman, slowly, "that my husband and myself reside with his mother in a certain city of the Virginias; that his father is dead, and, by his will, left his entire property to the elder Mrs. Van Bartan—my mother-in-law; that was all true."
The counsellor nodded.
"The other part," she went on, "I was trying to put into a 'hypothetical case '—is n't that what you call it?"
She hesitated for a moment.
"It is hard to tell, and I was only trying to save myself, but I suppose the surgeon is quite useless if the wound is not fully revealed. If you will listen to me I will explain. It is hard to tell, and it hurts, but everything is at stake, and if I lose now I lose everything. It will simply mean that I have made sacrifice after sacrifice for nothing at all. One shrinks from putting one's heart upon a dissecting table where the valves may be pinned back and pried into with the point of a scalpel, and so one struggles with a hurt until it finally aches so bitterly that the expert must be had. Then one goes to the surgeon or the priest or the lawyer, and takes an anaesthetic while he cuts it out."
"Madam," said Randolph Mason, "you talk like a diplomat: you say nothing at all."
The younger Mrs. Van Bartan unbuttoned her coat and threw it back with the air of one who has ultimately decided to keep nothing in reserve.
"I have been married three years," she began, "my father's name is Summers. In the good days of Virginia our family was wealthy, but of late years we have met with one disaster after another until the family became very poor, and the effort to maintain an appearance of respectability was a nipping struggle indeed.
"About this time the coal industries of West Virginia began to develop, and our city became a manufacturing centre. This brought in many Eastern capitalists, among them Michael Van Bartan, who established great iron mills, out of which he made a vast fortune. Shortly thereafter he died, leaving his widow and one son, Gerald Van Bartan.
"This woman I have never quite understood. After the death of her husband, she maintained their country place in almost profligate magnificence, but she has always seemed terribly disappointed in her son. He was a good, easy-going fellow, and his mother, an ambitious, restless woman, had great plans for his future. But, failing that, and being a person of shrewd instinct, she set about finding for him an ambitious wife, who would probably be able to succeed where she had failed. But while the mother was striving to select a suitable woman for her purpose, the son paid court to me,—and I married him."
The young woman paused for a moment, and the lines of her mouth hardened. Then she went on:
"He was not quite the person with whom I had hoped to spend my life, but he had wealth, and we were so miserably poor,—and, I judge after all, one is never permitted to do just what one wishes in this weary world. This marriage was a bitter disappointment to Mrs. Van Bartan, but she was a woman with the resources of an empress. She came at once to me, and, with the kindest and most gracious