"Malcolm," said the old gentleman, after they were seated, "from my attorney who defended the late suit that you brought against me, I learned some facts that I never knew before. I always believed my title to the property I hold to be clear, and never could imagine upon what just ground you claimed to contest it. But your attorney discovered, or you discovered it to him, a matter of which I have always been ignorant, and which gives color to the opinion you have so pertinaciously held in regard to your rights in my estate. That you have some right in it I think may be the case, though certainly not to the extent you have imagined. I have little doubt that, if you had not been thrown out of court on a demurrer, the court would have given you some twenty or thirty thousand dollars. This is my own lawyer's opinion."
"Then," said Malcolm, "it is clearly my duty to begin again."
"I would advise you to try another lawyer, if you do."
"Why so?" asked Malcolm.
"Because the one you had took a bribe to introduce to the court a defective bill."
"You are jesting," said Malcolm.
"No," replied Harrison, quietly; "I am entirely in earnest. My lawyer suggested that Dunbar could be bought over to our interests, and I took it into my head to see if he really was in earnest. Sure enough, Dunbar named thirty thousand dollars as the price he would take to introduce a defect in his bill, that we might throw you out of court, saddled with costs so great that you could not pay them, without which it would be impossible to begin again."
"And this was done?"
"Yes."
"You paid him thirty thousand dollars to defraud me?"