t with
so great a flourish that his long, thin arms and body were jerked into
semaphore angles, his face meanwhile beaming with ill-concealed delight.

Should any one of St. George's personal friends accompany him--men like
Kennedy, or General Hardisty, or some well-known man from the Eastern
Shore--one of the Dennises, or Joyneses, or Irvings--the pleasure was
intensified, the incident being of great professional advantage. "I have
just met old General Hardisty," he would say--"he was at our house," the
knowing ones passing a wink around, and the uninitiated having all
the greater respect and, therefore, all the greater confidence in that
rising young firm of "Pawson & Pawson, Attorneys and Counsellors at
Law--Wills drawn and Estates looked after."

That this rarest of gentlemen, of all men in the world, should be made
the victim of a group of schemers who had really tricked him of
almost all that was left of his patrimony, and he a member of his own
profession, was to Pawson one of the great sorrows of his life. That
he himself had unwittingly helped in its culmination made it all the
keener. Only a few weeks had passed since that eventful day when St.
George had sent Todd down to arrange for an interview, an event
which was followed almost immediately by that gentleman in person. He
remembered his delight at the honor conferred upon him; he recalled
how he had spent the whole of that and the next day in the attempt to
negotiate the mortgage on the old home at a reasonable rate of interest;
he recalled, too, how he could have lowered the rate had St. George
allowed him more time. "No, pay it and get rid of them!" St. George had
said, the "them" being part of the very accounts over which the two were
poring. And his patron had showed the same impatience when it came
to placing the money in the bank. Although his own lips were sealed
professionally by reason of the interests of another client, he had
begged St. George, almost to the verge of interference, not to give it
to the Patapsco, until he had been silenced with: "Have them put it to
my credit, sir. I have known every member of that bank for years."

All these things were, of course, unknown to Harry, the ultimate
beneficiary. Who had filled the bucket, and how and why, were
unimportant facts to him. That it was full, and ready for his use,
brought with it the same sense of pleasure he would have felt on a hot
day at Moorlands when he had gone to the old well, d