ung at the law yet, and didn't have much to do at it, and I sort of
run across a case I thought might amuse you, like, when you ain't got
nothin' to do. Folks don't seem to have much faith in young lawyers, and
you can't blame 'em; old ones don't know much. All any of 'em care for
is to get people into trouble so they can charge 'em fees to get 'em out
of it. So I thought mebby you'd like to hear of this case so you could
kind of mull it over in your mind whilst you're loafin' up here."

"That was kind of you," said Toole.

"I always like to do a good turn when I can," said the Colonel, "when
it don't cost nothin'. An' this case I was tellin' you about is a mighty
good one for a young lawyer to study over. Soon as I heard of it I says
to myself 'I'll tell this case to Attorney Toole, an' he'll be grateful
to hear of it.'"

The country client usually begins in some such way as this, anxious to
get all the advice he can without having to pay for it, and Toole merely
smiled.

"Mebby you know," said the Colonel, "that there was a feller took board
of Sally Briggs a while back; feller by the name of William Rossiter,
that come through here peddlin' lightnin' rods and pain killer and land
knows what all. Well, he was a rascal. He took board off of Sally Briggs
four weeks, and then he cleared out, and she nor no one else has seen
hide nor hair of him since, and he never paid her one cent. All he
ever let on was to leave this letter stickin' on the pin cushion in his
bedroom."

The Colonel dug the letter out of his vest pocket, and Toole read it. It
was short:

Dear Miss Briggs: I'm off. Good-by. Business in Kilo is no good. Sorry I
can't square up, but I leave you the box in my room in part payment. W.
R.

"Prosecution's exhibit No. 1," said the attorney.

"Jest what I was tellin' Miss Sally," said the Colonel. "I says to her
to keep that paper, and it might come handy. Mebby you heard that me and
Miss Sally was what you might call keepin' company?"

"That's interesting," said Toole. "Been keeping it long?"

"Quite some consid'able time," said the Colonel. "Long enough, land
knows, and we'd a-been done with it by this time and married, if that
Skinner hadn't come crowdin' in where he wasn't wanted. What right has
a man like him to come pushin' in like that? His wife ain't been dead
twelve months yet. It ain't decent of him, is it?"

"Do you want a legal opinion?" asked Toole, reaching for a large law
book that la