for the Ditch Company?" said Mr. Hotchkiss, in trembling indignation.

"Having won _your_ case, sir," said the Colonel, coolly,
"the--er--usages of advocacy do not prevent me from espousing the
cause of the weak and unprotected."

"We shall see, sir," said Hotchkiss, grasping the handle of the door
and backing into the passage. "There are other lawyers who--"

"Permit me to see you out," interrupted the Colonel, rising politely.

"--will be ready to resist the attacks of blackmail," continued
Hotchkiss, retreating along the passage.

"And then you will be able to repeat your remarks to me _in the
street_," continued the Colonel, bowing, as he persisted in following
his visitor to the door.

But here Mr. Hotchkiss quickly slammed it behind him, and hurried
away. The Colonel returned to his office, and sitting down, took a
sheet of letter paper bearing the inscription "Starbottle and Stryker,
Attorneys and Counsellors," and wrote the following lines:

Hooker _versus_ Hotchkiss.

DEAR MADAM,--Having had a visit from the defendant in
above, we should be pleased to have an interview with you at
2 p.m. to-morrow. Your obedient servants,
STARBOTTLE AND STRYKER.

This he sealed and despatched by his trusted servant Jim, and then
devoted a few moments to reflection. It was the custom of the Colonel
to act first, and justify the action by reason afterwards.

He knew that Hotchkiss would at once lay the matter before rival
counsel. He knew that they would advise him that Miss Hooker had "no
case"--that she would be non-suited on her own evidence, and he ought
not to compromise, but be ready to stand trial. He believed, however,
that Hotchkiss feared that exposure, and although his own instincts
had been at first against that remedy, he was now instinctively in
favor of it. He remembered his own power with a jury; his vanity and
his chivalry alike approved of this heroic method; he was bound by the
prosaic facts--he had his own theory of the case, which no mere
evidence could gainsay. In fact, Mrs. Hooker's own words that "he was
to tell the story in his own way" actually appeared to him an
inspiration and a prophecy.

Perhaps there was something else, due possibly to the lady's wonderful
eyes, of which he had thought much. Yet it was not her simplicity that
affected him solely; on the contrary, it was her apparent intelligent
reading of the character of her recreant