“Look here, Bradish,” said Squire Phin, standing up and planting his broad hands on the table to prop himself, “I’ve collected your bills from all except a half dozen men, and that half dozen intend to pay. But I’m not the kind of a lawyer that will take a poor man by the heels and pound his head on the ground to shake money out of his pockets. Those men have had sickness and death and troubles in their families, and they simply can’t pay. And you can’t buy law in my office with which to persecute honest men, Bradish.”
“Give me the bills, then,” commanded the other, stretching out his hand and clacking his middle finger smartly into the palm. “You aren’t the only lawyer in this county.”
Squire Phin looked at him steadily for a time, then pulled down a letter file and began to search it. When he had found the papers he held them and gazed at his client, knotting his eyebrows.
“I didn’t call you up here to talk about your bills,” he said, “but now that we are on the subject I’m going to ask you something, Bradish. Why is it that, after I’ve collected and put in your hands almost ten thousand dollars in the last few weeks—from men to whom you had promised longer time—you are still driving me to take the very heart’s blood out of these poor devils? Can’t you wait a few weeks?”
Bradish brought his foot to the floor.
“I suppose it’s a regular thing for a lawyer to ram his nose into a man’s business and twist it clear to the bottom, hey?”
“I don’t know as I ever asked another client such a question,” rejoined the Squire, coldly, “because I don’t usually have a client who wants me to go to a debtor with an auger and a blood-pump when the poor chap is down and helpless.”
“Then I’ll tell you, Look,” said Bradish, leaning forward with mock appearance of confiding the truth; “it’s none of your infernal business. Give me those papers. I know of a man that can collect them.”
“And I know a man that will,” returned the Squire, “and collect them without making women and children go hungry while their men folks are in jail.” He sat down at the table, pulled a long wallet from his pocket and began counting money from a thick packet of banknotes. “Receipt those bills,” he said curtly.
Bradish hesitated a moment, his anger prompting him to refuse the money from this source. But evidently his anxiety to secure his cash overmastered the grudge. He scrawled his name across the papers and took the banknotes.