ence and consistency to these, your advisers will of course take
all due precaution; but they will require aid also from you. You will
be asked for information you have no means of obtaining, for details you
cannot supply. A lawsuit is like a chase: the ardor of pursuit deadens
every sense of peril, and in the desire to win you become reckless for
the cost. I perceive," said he, "that you demur to some of this; but
remember that as yet you have not entered the field, that you have only
viewed the sport from afar, and its passions of hope and fear are all
untasted by you!"

"It may be as you say," said I, "and that hereafter I may seem to feel
differently; but for the present I can promise you that to secure a
verdict in my favor, not only would I not strain any point myself, but I
would not condescend to accept the benefit of such a sacrifice from
another. I believe--I have strong reasons to believe--that I am
asserting a rightful claim; the arguments that shall be sufficient to
convince others that I am wrong will, doubtless, be strong enough to
satisfy me."

He had fixed his eyes steadily on me while I was speaking these words,
and I could, easily perceive that the impression they produced on
him was favorable. He then led me on to speak of my life and its
vicissitudes, and I could detect in many of his questions that he had
formed erroneous notions as to various parts of my story. I cannot
attempt to explain why it was so; but the fact unquestionably was, that
I opened my heart more freely and unreservedly to this stranger than I
had ever done to any of those with whom I had before conversed; and when
we parted at length, it was like old friends.

The accident of our meeting was not known to others, and there was
considerable astonishment excited when it was heard that Hanchett, who
had hitherto shown no disposition to engage in the cause, now accepted
the brief and exhibited the warmest anxiety for success. His acute
intelligence quickly detected many things which had been passed over
as immaterial, and by his activity various channels of information were
opened which others had not thought of. In these details Ysaffich came
more than once before him; and it was remarkable with what shrewdness
he read the man's nature, bold, resolute, and unscrupulous as it was.
Between the two, the feeling of distrust rapidly ripened into open
hatred, each not hesitating to accuse the other of treachery; and thus
was a new eleme