By Advice of Counsel
"Maybe it isn't," he conceded, "but I've always liked that specious
anecdote attributed to Sheridan who paid his gambling debts and let his
tailor wait. You remember it, of course? When the tailor demanded the
reason for this Sheridan told him that a gambling debt was a debt of
honor and a tailor's bill was not, since his fortunate adversary at the
card table had only his promise to pay, whereas the tailor possessed an
action for an account which he could prosecute in the courts.
"'In that case!' declared the tailor, 'I'll tear up my bill!' which he
did, and Sheridan thereupon promptly paid him. Have another nip of
brandy?"
"No, thank you!" answered Payson. "It's getting late and I must be
going. I've--I've had a perfectly--er--ripping time!"
"You must come again soon!" said Mr. Tutt warmly, from the top of the
steps outside.
As Payson reached the sidewalk he looked back somewhat shamefacedly and
said:
"Do you think it makes any difference what sort of a person this Sadie
Burch is?"
In the yellow light of the street lamp it seemed to the collegian as if
the face of the old man bore for an instant a fleeting resemblance to
that of his father.
"Not one particle!" he answered. "Good night, my boy!"
But Payson Clifford did not have a good night by any manner of means.
Instead of returning to his hotel he wandered aimless and miserable
along the river front. He no longer had any doubt as to his duty. Mr.
Tutt had demolished Tutt in a breath,--and put the whole proposition
clearly. Tutt had given, as it were, and Mr. Tutt had taken away.
However, he told himself, that wasn't all there was to it; the money was
his in law and no one could deprive him of it. Why not sit tight and let
Mr. Tutt go to the devil? He need never see him again! And no one else
would ever know! Twenty-five thousand dollars? It would take him years
to earn such a staggering sum! Besides, there were two distinct sides to
the question. Wasn't Tutt just as good a lawyer as Mr. Tutt? Couldn't he
properly decide in favor of himself when the court was equally divided?
And Tutt had said emphatically that he would be a fool to surrender the
money. As Payson Clifford trudged along the shadows of the docks he
became obsessed with a curious feeling that Tutt and Mr. Tutt were both
there before him; Mr. Tutt--a tall, benevolent figure carrying a torch
in the shape of a huge, black, blazing stogy that beckoned him onward
through the darkness; and behind him Tutt--a little paunchy red devil
with horns and a tail--who tweaked him by the coat and twittered, "Don't
throw away twenty-five thousand dollars! The best way is to leave
matters as they are and let the law settle everything. Then you take no
chances!"
But in the end--along about a quarter to seven A.M.--Mr. Tutt won.
Exhausted, but at peace with himself, Payson Clifford stumbled into the
Harvard Club on Forty-fourth Street, ordered three fried eggs done on
one side, two orders of bacon and a pot of coffee, and then wrote a
letter which he dispatched by a messenger to Tutt & Tutt.
"Gentlemen," it read: "Will you kindly take immediate steps to find Miss
Sarah Burch and pay over to her twenty-five thousand dollars from my
father's residuary estate. I am entirely satisfied that this was his
wish. I am returning to Cambridge to-day. If necessary you can
communicate with me there.
"Yours very truly,
"PAYSON CLIFFORD."
* * * * *
One might suppose that a legatee to twenty-five thousand dollars could
be readily found; but Miss Sadie Burch proved a most elusive person. No
Burches grew in Hoboken--according to either the telephone or the
business directory--and Mr. Tutt's repeated advertisements in the
newspapers of that city elicited no response. Three months went by and
it began to look as if the lady had either died or permanently absented
herself--and that Payson Clifford might be able to keep his twenty-five
thousand with a clear conscience. Then one day in May came a letter from
a small town in the central part of New Jersey from Sadie Burch. She
had, she said, only just learned entirely by accident that she was an
object of interest to Messrs. Tutt & Tutt. Unfortunately, it was not
convenient for her to come to New York City, but if she could be of any
service to them she would be pleased, etc.
"I think I'll give the lady the once-over!" remarked Mr. Tutt, as he
looked across the glittering bay to the shadowy hills of New Jersey.
"It's a wonderful day, and there isn't much to do here...."
* * * * *
"Sadie Burch? Sadie Burch? Sure, I know her!" answered the lanky man
driving the flivver tractor nearby, as he inspected the motor carrying
Mr. Tutt. "She lives in the second house beyond the big elm--" and he
started plowing again with a great clatter.
The road glared white in the late afternoon sun. On either side
stretched miles of carefully cultivated fields, the country drowsed, the
air hot, but sweet with magnolia, lilac and apple blossoms. Miss Burch
had obviously determined that when she retired from the world of men she
would make a thorough job of it and expose herself to no temptation to
return--eight miles from the nearest railroad. Just beyond the elms they
slowed up alongside a white picket fence enclosing an old-fashioned
garden whence came to Mr. Tutt the busy murmur of bees. Then they came
to a gate that opened upon a red-tiled, box-bordered, moss-grown walk,
leading to a small white house with blue and white striped awnings. A
green and gold lizard poked its head out of the hedge and eyed Mr. Tutt
rather with curiosity than hostility.
"Does Miss Sadie Burch live here?" asked Mr. Tutt of the lizard.
"Yes!" answered a cheerful female voice from the veranda. "Won't you
come up on the piazza?"
The voice was not the kind of voice Mr. Tutt had imagined as belonging
to Sadie Burch. But neither was the lady on the piazza that kind of
lady. In the shadow of the awning in a comfortable rocking chair sat a
white-haired, kindly-faced woman, knitting a baby jacket. She looked up
at him with a friendly smile.
"I'm Miss Burch," she said. "I suppose you're that lawyer I wrote to?
Won't you come up and sit down?"
"Thanks," he replied, drawing nearer with an answering smile. "I can
only stay a few moments and I've been sitting in the motor most of the
day. I might as well come to the point at once. You have doubtless heard
of the death of Mr. Payson Clifford, Senior?"
Miss Burch laid down the baby-jacket and her lips quivered. Then the
tears welled in her faded blue eyes and she fumbled hastily in her bosom
for her handkerchief.
"You must excuse me!" she said in a choked voice. "--Yes, I read about
it. He was the best friend I had in the world,--except my brother John.
The kindest, truest friend that ever lived!"
She looked out across the little garden and wiped her eyes again.
Mr. Tutt sat down upon the moss-covered door-step beside her.
"I always thought he was a good man," he returned quietly. "He was an
old client of mine--although I didn't know him very well."
"I owe this house to him," continued Miss Burch tenderly. "If it hadn't
been for Mr. Clifford I don't know what would have become of me. Now
that John is dead and I'm all alone in the world this little
place--with the flowers and the bees--is all I've got."
They were silent for several moments. Then Mr. Tutt said:
"No, it isn't all. Mr. Clifford left a letter with his will in which he
instructed his son to pay you twenty-five thousand dollars. I'm here to
give it to you."
A puzzled look came over her face, and then she smiled again and shook
her head.
"That was just like him!" she remarked. "But it's all a mistake. He paid
me back that money five years ago. You see he persuaded John to go into
some kind of a business scheme with him and they lost all they put into
it--twenty-five thousand apiece. It was all we had. It wasn't his fault,
but after John died Mr. Clifford made me--simply made me--let him give
the money back. He must have written the letter before that and
forgotten all about it!"
You're Another!
"We have strict statutes, and most biting laws."
Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 4.
"I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no
laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have."
Montaigne. Of Experience, Chapter XIII.
Mrs. Pierpont Pumpelly, lawful spouse of Vice President Pumpelly, of
Cuban Crucible, erstwhile of Athens, Ohio, was fully conscious that even
if she wasn't the smartest thing on Fifth Avenue, her snappy little car
was. It was, as she said, a "perfec' beejew!" The two robes of silver
fox alone had cost eighty-five hundred dollars, but that was nothing;
Mrs. Pumpelly--in her stockings--cost Pierpont at least ten times that
every year. But he could afford it with Cruce at 791. So, having moved
from Athens to the metropolis, they had a glorious time. Out home the
Pierpont had been simply a P. and no questions asked as to what it stood
for; P. Pumpelly. But whatever its past the P. had now blossomed
definitely into Pierpont.
Though the said Pierpont produced the wherewithal, it was his wife,
Edna, who attended to the disbursing of it. She loved her husband, but
regarded him socially as somewhat of a liability, and Society was now,
as she informed everybody, her "meal yure."
She had eaten her way straight through the meal--opera box, pew at St.
Simeon Stylites, Crystal Room, musicales, Carusals, hospital
entertainments, Malted Milk for Freezing France, Inns for Indigent
Italians, Biscuits for Bereft Belgians, dinner parties, lunch parties,
supper parties, the whole thing; and a lot of the right people had come,
too.
The fly in the ointment of her social happiness--and unfortunately it
happened to be an extremely gaudy butterfly indeed--was her next-door
neighbor, Mrs. Rutherford Wells, who obstinately refused to recognize
her existence.
At home, in Athens, Edna would have resorted to the simple expedient of
sending over the hired girl to borrow something. But here there was
nothing doing. Mrs. Rutherford had probably never seen her own chef and
Mrs. Pumpelly was afraid of hers. Besides, even Edna recognized the
lamentable fact that it was up to Mrs. Wells to call first, which she
didn't. Once when the ladies had emerged simultaneously from their
domiciles Mrs. Pumpelly had smilingly waddled forward a few steps with
an ingratiating bow, but Mrs. Wells had looked over her head and hadn't
seen her.
Thereupon the iron had entered into Mrs. Pumpelly's soul and her life
had become wormwood and gall, ashes in her mouth and all the rest of it.
She proposed to get even with the cat at the very first chance, but
somehow the chance never seemed to come. She hated to be living on the
same street with that kind of nasty person. And who was this Wells
woman? Her husband never did a thing except play croquet or something at
a club! He probably was a drunkard--and a roo-ay. Mrs. Pumpelly soon
convinced herself that Mrs. Wells also must be a very undesirable, if
not hopelessly immoral lady. Anyhow, she made up her mind that she would
certainly take nothing further from her. Even if Mrs. Wells should have
a change of heart and see fit to call, she just wouldn't return it! So
when she rolled up in the diminutive car and found Mrs. Wells' lumbering
limousine blocking the doorway she was simply furious.
"Make that man move along!" she directed, and Jules honked and honked,
but the limousine did not budge.
Then Mrs. Pumpelly gave way to a fit of indignation that would have done
her proud even in Athens, Ohio. Fire-breathing, she descended from her
car and, approaching the limousine, told the imperturbable chauffeur