d view them was another kettle of fish.
But that was as might be. He put on his hat and stood up.

"Very good. I will give the matter my attention."

"Do," Dunwoodie, with that same look, retorted, "And meanwhile I will
apply for letters of administration. Hum! Ha! My compliments to your
good lady."

He turned in his chair. Attention, indeed! He knew what that meant. The
matter would be submitted to M. P. The old devil had not a leg to stand
on, he lacked even a crutch, and in that impotent, dismembered and
helpless condition he would be thrown out of court. A ponderable amount!
Hum!

For a moment he considered the case. But it may be that already it had
been heard and adjudged. Long since, perhaps, at some court of last
resort, the Paliser Case had been decided.

XXXVI

On the morrow, Jeroloman waited on his client, who received him in the
library, an agreeable room in which there was nothing literary, but
which succeeded at once in becoming extremely unpleasant.

M. P. was in tweeds. When his late lamented departed this life, he wore
crepe on his hat for ninety days. It was a tribute that he paid, not to
the lady's virtues, which were notoriously absent; nor to any love of
her, for he had disliked her exceedingly; nor yet because it was
conventional, he hated conventionality; but, by Gad, sir, because it
bucks the women up! All that was long ago. Since then he had become less
fastidious. At his son's funeral he appeared in black.

Now, on this day, dressed in tweeds, he greeted Jeroloman with his usual
cordiality.

"I hope to God you are not going to bother me about anything?"

The wicked old man, who had faced wicked facts before, faced a few of
them then. The stench of the main fact had been passing from him,
deodorised by the fumigating belief that his son had been killed by a
lunatic. Now here it was again, more mephitic than ever, and for the
whiffs of it with which Jeroloman was spraying him, he hated the man.

"Whom has she?"

"Dunwoodie."

He reviewed the bar. There was Bancroft, whose name was always in the
papers and to whom clients flocked. There was Gwathmay, whom the papers
ignored and whom only lawyers consulted. He might have either or both,
the rest of the crew as well, and in spite of them all, unless he
permitted himself to be done, the publicity would be just as resounding.

In the old nights, when social New York was a small and early, threats
had amused him. "I have my ho