me money if I needed it," he said after
they had talked matters over, "and so, you see, we have a good many
friends in Sandgate after all. And now I want you to sing a few of the
old songs for me, so that I can have them to think about when I am
lonesome and homesick."

But the singing was a failure, for Alice broke down in the middle of the
first song and they had to go out and watch the fireflies once more,
while she conquered her tears.

"You will write to me every day, won't you, Bertie?" she asked
disconsolately, as they waited the next morning for the train that was
to separate them. "I shall be so lonesome and blue all the time!"

When he kissed her good-by she could not speak, and the last he saw, as
the train bore him away, was that sweet sister's face, trying bravely to
smile through its tears, like the sun peeping out of a cloud.

CHAPTER IV

A SPIDER IN HIS DEN

"Thar's a sucker born every minit, an' two ter ketch him."--_Uncle
Terry._

There are lawyers and lawyers. Not all are legalized pickpockets, and
not all are imbued with the sole and noble purpose of serving the ends
of justice, whether that service lines their pockets or not. Some, and I
may say many of them, contrive to reverse matters and to make justice
serve them, and if the ways of justice do not conspire to that end, so
much the worse for the blind goddess. Modern justice oft-times means the
longest purse and the keenest ability to evade the law, and while an
unprincipled lawyer will not exactly throttle the mythological maiden
who holds the scales, he will, if necessary, so befog her every sense
with evasions, subterfuges, and non-pertinent issues that she might just
as well have been born deaf and dumb, and without feeling, as well as
blind, for all the use she has of those senses. Not only does modern law
service frequently resolve itself into a contest of unscrupulous
cunning, but modern law-making is occasionally shaped to serve the ends
of the profession, instead of justice. While the majority of lawyers are
not rascals in name, a good many are at heart, and with the most, when
it comes to the question of justice and a small fee and injustice and a
big one,--well, draw your own conclusions, all ye who have been fools
enough to seek recourse at law.

Lawyers seem to thrive on the passions and vanities of mankind, and many
of them are looking for fools who have money and a grievance. The
time-worn sarcasm that "