"Yes, I think that might be done. It will be easy for me to show him that the chances are two to one against him, if he permits the suit to go on."
"The easiest thing in the world. When do you see your client?"
"T shall see him early to-morrow."
"You think, then, that we might get something like thirty thousand dollars out of him?"
"Yes. But it will not do to let the matter be settled before some heavy costs are made to accrue, which Malcolm will have to pay off before he can begin de novo, after I throw you out on a demurrer, and which, of course, he will not be able to settle."
"That is all understood, of course. What I don't like in this matter, is being thrown out of the case on a demurrer, a circumstance that is never creditable to a lawyer. I may gain fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, but will not my reputation as an acute lawyer suffer too severely? I sometimes think it will."
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. A chance like this does not occur every day."
"I am well aware of that."
"Money is power, you know. Money is reputation—money is everything. With plenty of money you may set the world at defiance."
"But I don't call fifteen or twenty thousand dollars plenty of money."