set her heart--"

He stopped short. There was a dead pause, and I felt the blood rush to
my cheeks.

"Well!" he exclaimed, "I have let the cat out of the bag with a
vengeance this time. A lawyer, too. Pshaw! It is too bad!"

"That settles it," said Mr. Prime, quietly; "I cannot accept now at any
rate. It would not be fair to your client."

"Not accept? Of course you will accept. Nonsense, nonsense! It is all my
fault, and you shall have the money now if I have to pay it out of my
own pocket. Besides," said Mr. Chelm with voluble eagerness, "there is
very little harm done after all; and to prevent misunderstanding, I may
as well make a clean breast of it. My client is an eccentric maiden-lady
of sixty-five, with a lot of distant relatives who bother her life out
while waiting for her to die. I am her only intimate friend, but even I
cannot prevent her from doing all sorts of queer things in her taste for
sentimentality. You see, poor woman, when she was very young she had a
lover of just about your age (she wears his portrait perpetually in a
locket about her neck), who died. He was in business, and doing very
well. Several times already, on this account, she has helped young men
who were in straits; and when I told her your story, and what you were
ambitious to do, she clapped her withered old hands together and said,
'I will give him a chance, Mr. Chelm, I will give him a chance! He
reminds me of my Tom.' And that is how it came to pass. There is the
long-and-short of the matter. Accept? To be sure you will accept. It is
all my fault. I will make it right with her. It would break her heart if
you did not. So, no more words about it. I have all the necessary papers
ready."

Mr. Prime was patting Ike more abstractedly than ever. As for me, I sat
aghast and overwhelmed. The next few seconds seemed an eternity.

"Well, young man?"

"Please to write your letter, Mr. Chelm, and give me time to think."

"Not a bit of it! The letter can wait. Say you accept, and be done with
it!"

"Very well then, I accept. We are gentlemen of fortune, Ike, and you
shall have a new silver collar to-morrow."

It is not necessary to describe the details of the interview further. An
hour elapsed before the final arrangements were made and Mr. Prime left
the office. He was to start in business as soon as possible, and make
frequent reports of his progress to Mr. Chelm. Meanwhile I sat within
hearing distance, and occasionally took a p