"Good morning, Mr. Fenwick!" said a well known individual, coming into the lawyer's office a few minutes after he had himself entered.
"That trial comes on this afternoon at four o'clock."
"Well, John, I can't help it. The debt is a just one, but I have no means of meeting it now."
"Try, and do so if you can, Mr. Fenwick, for the plaintiff is a good deal irritated about the matter, and will push the thing to extremities."
"I should be sorry for that. But if so, let him use his own pleasure. Take nothing from nothing, and nothing remains."
"You had better come then with security, Mr. Fenwick, for my orders are, to have an execution issued against your person, as soon as the case is decided."
"You are not in earnest, John?" suddenly ejaculated the lawyer, rising to his feet, and looking at the humble minister of the law with a pale cheek and quivering lip. "Surely Mr. —— is not going to push matters to so uncalled-for an extremity!"
"Such, he positively declares, is his fixed determination. So hold yourself prepared, sir, to meet even this unpleasant event."
The debt for which the warrant had been issued against Mr. Fenwick, amounted to ninety dollars.
The whole of the remaining part of that day was spent in the effort to obtain security in the case. But in vain. His friends knew too well his inability to protect them from certain loss, should they step between him and the law. Talents, education, brilliant addresses, fine poetry "and all that," turned to no good and useful ends, he found availed him nothing now. Even many of those with whom he had been in intimate literary association, shrunk away from the penniless individual, and those who did not actually shun him had lost much of their former cordiality.