have your
witnesses ready to proceed to-morrow afternoon at two o'clock."

* * * * *

"Mr. Tutt," said Tutt with a depressed manner as he watched Willie
remove the screen and drag out the old gate-leg table for the firm's
daily five o'clock tea and conference in the senior partner's office,
"if a man called you a shyster what would you do about it?"

The elder lawyer sucked meditatively on the fag end of his stogy before
replying.

"Why not sue him?" Mr. Tutt inquired.

"But suppose he didn't have any money?" replied Tutt disgustedly.

"Then why not have him arrested?" continued Mr. Tutt. "It's libelous
_per se_ to call a lawyer a shyster."

"Even if he is one," supplemented Miss Minerva Wiggin ironically, as she
removed her paper cuffs preparatory to lighting the alcohol lamp under
the teakettle. "The greater the truth the greater the libel, you know!"

"And what do you mean by that?" sharply rejoined Tutt. "You don't--"

"No," replied the managing clerk of Tutt & Tutt. "I don't! Of course
not! And frankly, I don't know what a shyster is."

"Neither do I," admitted Tutt. "But it sounds opprobrious. Still, that
is a rather dangerous test. You remember that colored client of ours who
wanted us to bring an action against somebody for calling him an
Ethiopian!"

"There's nothing dishonorable in being an Ethiopian," asserted Miss
Wiggin.

"A shyster," said Mr. Tutt, reading from the Century Dictionary, "is
defined as 'one who does business trickily; a person without
professional honor; used chiefly of lawyers.'"

"Well?" snapped Tutt.

"Well?" echoed Miss Wiggin.

"H'm! Well!" concluded Mr. Tutt.

"I nominate for the first pedestal in our Hall of Legal Ill
Fame--Raphael B. Hogan," announced Tutt, complacently disregarding all
innuendoes.

"But he's a very elegant and gentlemanly person," objected Miss Wiggin
as she warmed the cups. "My idea of a shyster is a down-at-the-heels,
unshaved and generally disreputable-looking police-court
lawyer--preferably with a red nose--who murders the English
language--and who makes his living by preying upon the ignorant and
helpless."

"Like Finklestein?" suggested Tutt.

"Exactly!" agreed Miss Wiggin. "Like Finklestein."

"He's one of the most honorable men I know!" protested Mr. Tutt. "My
dear Minerva, you are making the great mistake--common, I confess, to a
large number of people--of associating dirt and crime. Now dirt may
br