The second “conference” that evening began at the same time with Bar’s, but it did not last all night.
It was held in the elegantly furnished library of Dr. Manning, and the parties to it were an elderly-looking, intellectual-seeming gentleman, and the doctor himself.
The former was no less a man than Dr. Manning’s legal counsel, who had called for a very different piece of business from the one before him now.
He had evidently been listening to his client’s account of his misfortune, and his face expressed almost as much indignation as sympathy.
“You see, Judge,” urged the doctor, “I felt that I ought to take it while I could get it. He was to go on board the steamer at six o’clock, and it seemed like my last chance. He means to be honest, you know, but he’s so speculative and uncertain. He signed over the checks and drafts, and paid me the money, just as if he had never intended to do anything else.”
“You could have had him arrested,” snapped the judge.
“Arrested, Judge Danvers? The very thing I did not want to do. Besides, how could I, when he turned upon me so frankly and said, ‘There’s your money just as I collected it, every cent,’ and paid it squarely into my hands.”
“No telling what he has that belongs to other men. You were not his only victim.”
“Never thought of that,” said the doctor. “Anyhow, I received my money.”
“And lost it on your way home,” growled the judge.