d Lawyer Perkins, "there's a will and no will,--that
is to say, the fragments of what is supposed to be a will were found,
and we are trying to put the pieces together. It is doubtful if we
can do it; it is doubtful if we can decipher it after we have done
it; and if we decipher it it is a question whether the document is
valid or not."

"That is a masterly exposition of the dilemma, Mr. Perkins," said
the school-master warmly.

Mr. Perkins had spoken in his court-room tone of voice, with one
hand thrust into his frilled shirt-bosom. He removed this hand for a
second, as he gravely bowed to Mr. Pinkham.

"Nothing could be clearer," said Mr. Ward. "In case the paper is
worthless, what then? I am not asking you in your professional
capacity," he added hastily; for Lawyer Perkins had been known to
send in a bill on as slight a provocation as Mr. Ward's.

"That's a point. The next of kin has his claims."

"My friend Shackford, of course," broke in Mr. Craggie. "Admirable
young man!--one of my warmest supporters."

"He is the only heir at law so far as we know," said Mr. Perkins.

"Oh," said Mr. Craggie, reflecting. "The late Mr. Shackford might
have had a family in Timbuctoo or the Sandwich Islands."

"That's another point."

"The fact would be a deuced unpleasant point for young Shackford
to run against," said Mr. Ward.

"Exactly."

"If Mr. Lemuel Shackford," remarked Coroner Whidden, softly
joining the conversation to which he had been listening in his
timorous, apologetic manner, "had chanced, in the course of his early
sea-faring days, to form any ties of an unhappy complexion"--

"Complexion is good," murmured Mr. Craggie. "Some Hawaiian lady!"

--"perhaps that would be a branch of the case worth investigating
in connection with the homicide. A discarded wife, or a disowned son,
burning with a sense of wrong"--

"Really, Mr. Whidden!" interrupted Lawyer Perkins witheringly, "it
is bad enough for my client to lose his life, without having his
reputation filched away from him."

"I--I will explain! I was merely supposing"--

"The law never supposes, sir!"

This threw Mr. Whidden into great mental confusion. As coroner was
he not an integral part of the law, and when, in his official
character, he supposed anything was not that a legal supposition? But
was he in his official character now, sitting with a glass of
lemonade at his elbow in the reading-room of the Stillwater hotel?
Was he, or was he no