drink before you go there."

"Thank you; not to-night," said Bintrey. "Shall I come to you at ten to-
morrow?"

"I shall be enchanted, sir, to take so early an opportunity of redressing
the wrongs of my injured client," returned the good notary.

"Yes," retorted Bintrey; "your injured client is all very well--but--a
word in your ear."

He whispered to the notary and walked off. When the notary's housekeeper
came home, she found him standing at his door motionless, with the key
still in his hand, and the door unopened.

OBENREIZER'S VICTORY

The scene shifts again--to the foot of the Simplon, on the Swiss side.

In one of the dreary rooms of the dreary little inn at Brieg, Mr. Bintrey
and Maitre Voigt sat together at a professional council of two. Mr.
Bintrey was searching in his despatch-box. Maitre Voigt was looking
towards a closed door, painted brown to imitate mahogany, and
communicating with an inner room.

"Isn't it time he was here?" asked the notary, shifting his position, and
glancing at a second door at the other end of the room, painted yellow to
imitate deal.

"He _is_ here," answered Bintrey, after listening for a moment.

The yellow door was opened by a waiter, and Obenreizer walked in.

After greeting Maitre Voigt with a cordiality which appeared to cause the
notary no little embarrassment, Obenreizer bowed with grave and distant
politeness to Bintrey. "For what reason have I been brought from
Neuchatel to the foot of the mountain?" he inquired, taking the seat
which the English lawyer had indicated to him.

"You shall be quite satisfied on that head before our interview is over,"
returned Bintrey. "For the present, permit me to suggest proceeding at
once to business. There has been a correspondence, Mr. Obenreizer,
between you and your niece. I am here to represent your niece."

"In other words, you, a lawyer, are here to represent an infraction of
the law."

"Admirably put!" said Bintrey. "If all the people I have to deal with
were only like you, what an easy profession mine would be! I am here to
represent an infraction of the law--that is your point of view. I am
here to make a compromise between you and your niece--that is my point of
view."

"There must be two parties to a compromise," rejoined Obenreizer. "I
decline, in this case, to be one of them. The law gives me authority to
control my niece's actions, until she comes of age. She is not yet of
age; and I