In this demand poor Mr. Fellows found he had gone a step too far. Mr. Spaythe, angry and resentful, called on him and requested him not to publish any more such foolish ideas. Sam Parsons called on him and politely but firmly requested him to mind his own business. Mr. Holbrook called on him and sarcastically asked if he preferred to undertake the case, with its responsibilities, rather than trust to the judgment of a competent attorney. The bewildered editor tore up the article he had written for the next edition and resolved to keep silent thereafter, as a matter of policy.
Lawyer Kellogg was also keeping very quiet, relying upon the evidence he had on hand to convict the accused. He was greatly annoyed at times by Mrs. Ritchie, who drove to town every few days—usually in the evenings—and urged him to get back her money and the missing paper. This the lawyer was unable to do, even when she offered him a thousand dollars for the recovery of the paper alone.
“What was the paper?” he asked.
“That don’t concern you,” she retorted.
“It does, indeed, Mrs. Ritchie,” protested the man. “How can I find a paper if I am totally ignorant of its character? Was it a deed, a mortgage, or what?”
She looked at him uneasily.
“I wish I could trust you,” she muttered; “but you’re such a lyin’ scoundrel that I’ve no confidence in you.”
“I’m honest to my clients, at all times, and as honest as most men in other ways,” he assured her. “I’ve often observed that those who can’t trust their lawyers are not honest themselves.”
“Meaning me, sir?”
“Yes.”