give you a term in the State's prison,
whenever I may happen to feel inclined that way."

"Indeed!" Martin spoke with a cold, defiant sneer.

"I am uttering no vague threat. From the beginning, I have kept this
trap over you, ready to spring, if need be, at a moment's warning."

"I suppose you thought me a poor fool, did you not?" said Martin as
coldly and contemptuously as before. "But you were mistaken. I have
not been altogether willing to trust myself in your hands, without
good advice from a limb of the law quite as shrewd as yourself."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Grind, somewhat startled by so
unexpected a declaration.

"Plainly," was answered, "while I took your advice as to the surest
way to act upon Jasper, I consulted another as to the means of
protecting myself from you, if matters ever came to a pinch."

"Oh! Preposterous!" Grind forced a laugh. "That's only an
afterthought."

"Is it. Hark!" Martin bent close to his ear, and uttered a few words
in an undertone. Grind started as if stung by a serpent.

"Wretch!"

"It is useless to call ill names, my friend. I have you in my power;
and I mean to keep you there. But I shall not be very hard on you. So,
don't look so awfully cut down."

For once the scheming, unscrupulous lawyer found himself outwitted.
His tool had proved too sharp for him. Without a doubt he was in his
power to an extent by no means agreeable to contemplate. Grind now saw
that conciliation was far better than antagonism.

When Martin retired from the lawyer's office, he had in his pocket a
check for two hundred dollars, while behind him was left his solemn
pledge to leave the city for New Orleans the next day. The pledge,
when given, he did not intend to keep; and it was not kept, as Grind
soon afterward learned, to his sorrow. A drunkard and a gambler, it
did not take Martin long to see once more the bottom of his purse. Not
until this occurred did he trouble the lawyer again. Then he startled
him with a second visit, and, after a few sharp words, came off with
another check, though for a less amount.

And for years, leech-like, Martin, sinking lower and lower all the
time, continued his adhesion to the lawyer, abstracting continually,
but in gradually diminishing sums, the money needed for natural life
and sensual indulgence, until often his demands went not above a
dollar. Grind, reluctantly as he yielded to these demands, believed it
wiser to pay them than to meet the ex