mean, Holden?"

Grafton's voice sounded a mile away, but the words of Belden, Coates'
clerk, were clear enough as he whispered in Holden's ear:

"Wasn't it great? Kept you all off for over three years without a ghost
of a defence! Our people only wanted time to get things fixed and we got
it for them all right enough, I guess. Give you a dime for your
judgment! I tell you----"

But Holden suddenly struck Belden across the mouth and was promptly
adjudged guilty of contempt of Court.--Of which the payment of his fine
did not purge him, an order of the Court to the contrary
notwithstanding.

A CONCLUSION OF LAW.

This story will not be understood by half the people who read it and the
other half will not believe it, so it should be perfectly innocuous.

Hartruff, it is true, took offence when Norris told it in his
presence,--but trust Norris for picking out the hundredth man. He has
about as much tact as Hartruff has conscience, so they are admirably
adapted for mutual misunderstanding.

They encountered in the smoking-room of the Equity Club after lunch,
where the usual number of lawyers were gathered to bore one another with
dissertations on their respective cases. One can sometimes obtain useful
information by listening to a good deal of tiresome boasting, but the
real reward for enduring long blasts of someone else's horn is, of
course, the privilege of blowing your own. Norris, however, cared
nothing for performances of this kind, and the first professional toot
was, as a rule, the signal for his departure.

The man who doesn't boast is apt to be popular, but the man who won't
listen to boasting is invariably disliked. Norris was not popular, and
the loudest performers hinted that he hadn't any practice to talk about.
What induced him to depart from his usual custom on this particular
occasion I do not know, unless, as I have said, it was his fatal genius
for picking out the hundredth man.

Groton had been discoursing for twenty minutes on his triumphant
progress through a case with which all his hearers were supposed to be
familiar--for Groton thinks a breathless world watches his career--when
he happened to mention somebody as being of "no political importance."

"There isn't any such person," interrupted Norris.

Groton stopped and looked at the speaker in surprise.

"I didn't mean to interrupt you, Groton," continued Norris, "I've a bad
habit of thinking aloud. Go on with what you were saying