The lawyer hoped that this step, though personally inconvenient, and much more expensive, might injure Dr. Euclid by implying that one of the trustees lacked confidence in him as a teacher.
Herbert left the room, well pleased on the whole with the upshot of the affair.
Half an hour later an old man, Joshua Starr by name, was ushered into the lawyer’s presence. He was a man bordering upon seventy, with pinched and wizened features, which bore the stamp of meanness plainly stamped upon them. By one method and another he had managed to scrape together a considerable property, not wholly in a creditable manner.
He had cheated his own brother out of three thousand dollars, but in a way that did not make him amenable to the law. He had lent money to his neighbors on usurious terms, showing no mercy when they were unable to make payment. Such was the man who came to the squire for help.
“Good-evening, Squire Ross!” he said. “I’ve come to you on a little matter of business.”
“Well, Mr. Starr, state your case.”
“I’ve got a note agin’ a party in town, which I want you to collect.”
“Who is the party, Mr. Starr?”
“Waal, it’s the Widder Gordon.”
Squire Ross pricked up his ears.