it was necessary on Mr. Crawley's behalf,
of course it must be done. "Her last address was at Paris, sir; but
I think she gone on to Florence. She has friends there, and she
purposes to meet the dean at Venice on his return." Then Mr. Harding
turned to the table and wrote on a card his daughter's address.

"I suppose Mrs. Arabin must have heard of the affair?" said Mr
Toogood.

"She had not done so when she last wrote. I mentioned it to her the
other day, before I knew that she had left Paris. If my letters and
her sister's letters have been sent on to her, she must know it now."

Then Mr. Toogood got up to take his leave. "You will excuse me for
troubling you, I hope, Mr. Harding."

"Oh, sir, pray do not mention it. It is no trouble if one could only
be of any service."

"One can always try to be of service. In these affairs so much is to
be done by rummaging about, as I always call it. There have been many
theatrical managers, you know, Mr. Harding, who have usually made up
their pieces according to the dresses they have happened to have in
their wardrobes."

"Have there, indeed, now? I never should have thought of that."

"And we lawyers have to do the same thing."

"Not with your clothes, Mr. Toogood?"

"Not exactly with our clothes;--but with our information."

"I do not quite understand you, Mr. Toogood."

"In preparing a defence we have to rummage about and get up what we
can. If we can't find anything that suits us exactly, we are obliged
to use what we do find as well as we can. I remember, when I was a
young man, an ostler was to be tried for stealing some oats in the
Borough; and he did steal them too, and sold them at a rag-shop
regularly. The evidence against him was as plain as a pike-staff. All
I could find out was that on a certain day a horse had trod on the
fellow's foot. So we put it to the jury whether the man could walk as
far as the rag-shop with a bag of oats when he was dead lame;--and we
got him off."

"Did you though?" said Mr. Harding.

"Yes, we did."

"And he was guilty?"

"He had been at it regularly for months."

"Dear, dear, dear! Wouldn't it have been better to have had him
punished for the fault,--gently; so as to warn him of the
consequences of such doings?"

"Our business was to get him off,--and we got him off. It's my
business to get my cousin's husband off, if I can, and we must do it,
by hook or by crook. It's a very difficult piece of work, because he
won't