“Yes, it’s all clear to date as far as the records show,” he said, with careful limitation, in reply to a request from Major Welch for a certificate,” but if you’ll take my advice——” Still, who was sitting near, wriggled slightly in his chair. Major Welch had been a little exasperated. “My dear sir, I should be very glad to take your advice generally, but this is a matter of private business between this gentle——between Mr. Still and myself, and I must be allowed to act on my own judgment. What I want is not advice, but a certificate of the state of those titles.” A change came over the old clerk’s countenance. He bowed stiffly. “All right, sir; I reckon you know your own business,” he said, dryly, and he made out the certificate and handed it to Major Welch almost grimly. Major Welch glanced at it and turned to Still. “You can have your deeds prepared, Mr. Still. I am going to town to-morrow and shall be ready to pay over the money on my return.” He spoke in a tone for the clerk to hear and intended to show his resolution. Still followed him out and suggested that he’d as lieve give him the deeds to put to record then, and he could pay him when he came back. He was always willing to take a gentleman’s word. This, however, Major Welch would not consent to. Still stayed with Major Welch all the rest of the day and returned home with him: a fellowship which, though somewhat irksome to the Major, he tolerated, because Still, half-jestingly, half-seriously, explained that somehow he “felt sort of safer” when he was with the Major. Two or three days afterward Major Welch, having returned from the capital, paid Still the money and took his deed; and it was duly recorded. The interview in the clerk’s office, in which Major Welch had declined to hear the old clerk’s advice, was reported by Mr. Dockett to Steve Allen and Jacquelin Gray that same evening. The only way to save the place, they agreed, was to institute their proceedings and file a notice of a pending suit, or, as the lawyers call it, a _lis pendens_. “He’ll hardly be big enough fool to fly in the face of that,” said Mr. Dockett. So the very next day a suit was docketed and a _lis pendens_ filed, giving notice that the title to the lands was in question. The summonses were delivered to the sheriff, Mr. James Sherwood; but this was the day Major Welch spent in the city, and when the sheriff handed the summons to Still and showed the one he had for Major Welch, Still took it from him, saying he would serve it for him. Thus it happened that when Major Welch paid down the money he was in ignorance that two suits had already been instituted to declare the title in Still fraudulent. Meantime, copies of Mrs. Welch’s letter to her friends had come back to the County, and the effect was instantaneous.