"Cutaway, of course, received a polite invitation to step up to Van Nickem's office and learn something to his advantage; and he attended. A few days afterwards I dropped in.
"'Your man's been here,' says Van Nickem, smilingly.
"'Has, eh? Well, what's he done?' said I.
"'O, he acknowledges the debt, says he thinks you are rather hurrying up the biscuits, and thinks you might have sent the bill to him instead of giving it to me for collection,' says the lawyer.
"'Send it to him!' says I. 'Why I sent it fifty times;—sent my clerk until he got ashamed of going, and my boy went so often that his boots got into such a way of going to Cutaway's shop, that he had to change them with his brother, when he was going anywhere else!'
"'He appears to be a clever sort of a fellow,' said Van.
"'He is,' said I, 'the cleverest, most perfectly-at-home diddler in town.'
"'Well,' said Van Nickem, 'Cutaway acknowledges the debt, says he's rather straightened just now, but if you'll give him a little more time, he'll fork up every cent; so if I were you, I'd wait a little and see.'
"Well, I did wait. I didn't want to appear more eager for law than a lawyer, so I waited—three months. At the end of that time, early one Saturday morning, in came Cutaway. 'Aha!' says I, 'you are going to fork now, at last; it's well you come, for I'd been down on you on Monday, bright and early!'"
"You didn't say that to him, did you?" we observed.