"I did not expect this act of kindness from you, Mr. Dunbar," said Malcolm, now recollecting the deep obligation under which the lawyer was placing him. "When it is in my power, I hope to make you feel that I am grateful. What is done must be done, I suppose, immediately."
"Yes. For if it be not all over before judgments are obtained and executions issued by those who are suing, some trouble may be given, although the sale could not be prevented."
"I am ready to have the matter as speedily arranged as possible."
"Very well. If you will draw me a note on demand for three hundred dollars, I will hand you my check for that amount. To-morrow, if you will call round, the confession of judgment can be made. Things will go on smoothly enough after that. Leave it all in my hands. I can manage these underlings of the law to a nicety. In due time I will notify you how to act."
The thing proposed by the lawyer was done. Malcolm was quietly sold out by the sheriff, and Dunbar got legal possession of all the goods in his store and furniture in his house.
"I think I shall be able to manage him now," he said to himself, with a cold and heartless sneer, "should he prove troublesome. Harrison will hear no more from him after this suit is lost. What fools some men are!"
[CHAPTER XI.]
A BIT OF RETALIATION.
AFTER the sheriff's sale had taken place, Malcolm tried to fix his mind more intently on his business, but he found this almost impossible. The argument in his suit against Harrison was to come on at the next term, only two months off, and his anxiety about the result kept his thoughts in such a continued state of excitement, that he injured rather than benefited his business by whatever was done to advance it.
One day he called upon Dunbar, to ask how the matter was progressing. He found the lawyer looking very serious.