“I heard down to the village that you and the old man had agreed to disagree,” he pursued, with that calm impertinence that Palermo called “the Bradish cheek.”
“I don’t thank anybody to go peddlin’ my bus’ness ’round.”
“Well, you’d have to put Sawed-off Purday under bonds to keep his mouth shut if you don’t want legal business strung from Clew to Erie in this town. But what I can’t understand is, why you didn’t get a lawyer that would really put your case through. Phin Look never will. And he don’t intend to, because he told Purday as much.”
There was malice in the glint of his eye.
She clutched at the palings and projected her face at him over them.
“You needn’t make up any such faces at me,” he said coolly. “It’s none of my business, especially, but I hate to see a man that poses as a lawyer go around fooling his clients.”
“Look here, King Bradish,” she cried, “I don’t know what Hen’ Purday is saying and I don’t care. But I do know that Squire Phin Look was here this very afternoon, and the libel was served on Mr. Dunham, and the Squire is down there in the school house this very minute talkin’——” In spite of herself her voice wavered, for she had been wondering with angry astonishment why her lawyer should go into so long a conference with the other side.
Bradish slowly stretched up his arms and yawned. “Yes?” he drawled. “Down there with the school-marm, hey? Probably he’s telling her how the paper that was served on your husband to-day was only a dog-license blank, and they’re having a laugh, and he’s explaining how he will fix the thing up and fool you.”
She slammed open the gate and started down the road.
“Jump in!” he invited. “You seem to be in a hurry, and I don’t blame you a bit.”