"I don't believe I do, dear," said I; "but I'll do my level best to rent it to him for one season. You know I wouldn't care to murder him; if he's hopelessly maimed I'll be satisfied."
We both laughed; but the next day I advertised the lease of a cottage for sale very cheap, and gave as a reason my desire to go where there were fewer people. I think this will catch my enemy. He likes a crowd, and he'd enjoy nothing better than to feel that I was forced to pay half of his rent. So I marked the paper and sent it to him, and confidently await the result.
FOR THE PROSECUTION.
"So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human sufferings that even Justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain."—George Eliot.
I.
Shortly after Fred Mathews began the practice of law he was elected to the office of Prosecuting Attorney in the Western town to which he had gone when first admitted to the bar.
Of course, every law student becomes familiar with the jests and gibes cast at the members of the profession as men who are peculiarly economical of the truth. He smiles with those who hint that a lawyer is always lavish of advice that leads to litigation.
That students of Blackstone and Coke hear much merrymaking over and some serious criticism of the quibbles to which the best of them are supposed to resort—of making little of real evidence and much of trivialities—goes without saying. Nor are they unaware of the fact—alas! sometimes too well founded upon strong evidence—that the general public appears to be convinced that laws are made for the purpose of shielding the rich and oppressing the poor or unfortunate.