ney you mention, I do not remember having seen you for at
least a week before to-day. I am very certain you have not been in
my office within that time, unless it were when I was away. Your
memory is doubtless at fault. You must have handed the money to some
one else, and, in the excitement of the occasion, confounded me with
that individual. Were I not charitable enough to suppose this, I
should be deeply offended by what you now say."

"Mr. Dockett," returned the client, contracting his brow heavily,
"Do you take me for a simpleton?"

"Pray don't get excited, Mr. Hardy," replied the lawyer, with the
utmost coolness. "Excitement never does any good. Better collect
your thoughts, and try and remember into whose hands you really did
place your money. That I have not a dollar belonging to you, I can
positively affirm."

"Perhaps you call my seven thousand dollars your own now. I gave you
the sum, according to your own advice; but it was an understood
matter that you were to hand the money back so soon as I had
appeared before the commissioners."

"Mr. Hardy!" and the lawyer began to look angry. "Mr. Hardy, I will
permit neither you nor any other man to face me with such an
insinuation. Do you take me for a common swindler? You came and
asked if there was not some mode by which you could cheat your
creditors out of six or seven thousand dollars; and I, as in duty
bound, professionally, told you how the law might be evaded. And now
you affirm that I joined you as a party in this nefarious
transaction! This is going a little too far?"

Amazement kept the duped client dumb for some moments. When he would
have spoken, his indignation was so great that he was afraid to
trust himself to utter what was in his mind. Feeling that too much
was at stake to enter into any angry contest with the man who had
him so completely in his power, Mr. Hardy tore himself away, by a
desperate effort, in order that, alone, he might be able to think
more calmly, and devise, if possible, the means whereby the
defective memory of the lawyer might be quickened.

On the next day, he went again to the office of his legal adviser,
and was received very kindly by that individual.

"I am sure, Mr. Dockett," he said, after he was seated, speaking in
a soft, insinuating tone of voice, "that you can now remember the
little fact of which I spoke yesterday."

But Mr. Dockett shook his head, and answered, "You have made some
mistake, Mr. Hardy. No suc