"Accept it?" returned Dunbar, with well-assumed surprise. "No! Nor double the amount. Your case is as clear as noon-day. I have already stated it to two of our judges, and they agree with me that you have everything on your side. The very fact that an offer to compromise has been made, shows that the defendant's counsel has been acute enough to see the weak points of his case, and to advise the course that has been taken. He's as timid as a hare, at any rate; and a mere old woman at the bar. I am astonished at his being employed in a case involving so much." Thus assured, Malcolm declined the offer. That evening the plaintiff's and defendant's lawyers met at the office of the former. "Have you seen Malcolm?" was the first question asked. "Yes," replied Dunbar. "He was here this morning." "And wanted to settle the matter, I suppose." "Oh, yes. He was warm for it at first, but I soon satisfied him that it would be folly to do so. I suppose you might induce your client to offer thirty or forty thousand dollars in order to get a clear title to his remaining property." "Yes, I think that might be done. It will be easy for me to show him that the chances are two to one against him, if he permits the suit to go on." "The easiest thing in the world. When do you see your client?" "T shall see him early to-morrow." "You think, then, that we might get something like thirty thousand dollars out of him?" "Yes. But it will not do to let the matter be settled before some heavy costs are made to accrue, which Malcolm will have to pay off before he can begin de novo, after I throw you out on a demurrer, and which, of course, he will not be able to settle." "That is all understood, of course. What I don't like in this matter, is being thrown out of the case on a demurrer, a circumstance that is never creditable to a lawyer. I may gain fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, but will not my reputation as an acute lawyer suffer too severely? I sometimes think it will." "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. A chance like this does not occur every day." "I am well aware of that." "Money is power, you know. Money is reputation—money is everything. With plenty of money you may set the world at defiance." "But I don't call fifteen or twenty thousand dollars plenty of money." "Though a very important sum in the process of accumulation." "Yes, there is no doubt of that. I think," Dunbar added, after reflecting for some moments, "that some less apparent defect might be substituted for the one I have admitted, and which would not reflect so strongly upon my want of legal acumen." "And by doing so, jeopardize the result." "I am safe for ten thousand, you know; and I am not sure that I ought not to be satisfied with that and the reputation success in this case will give me."