"Ignorance or neglect!" exclaimed Dunbar, his face instantly suffused. "Do you know whom you are addressing?" "I think I ought to know by this time," returned Malcolm, who was fast losing control of himself. "I am talking to a lawyer who has lost me an important suit, through a flaw in his bill, of which the merest legal tyro would be ashamed." "You will repent this," said Dunbar, setting his teeth closely together. "I never pass by an insult from friend or foe." "I can never repent knowing you more bitterly than I now do." "You are mistaken," coolly replied Dunbar, who had regained his self-possession. "You will repent it far more bitterly." There was something so full of meaning in the way this was uttered, that Malcolm was startled by it. At that moment he remembered that all he had in the world could be swept from his possession in a moment by the lawyer, whose property, by virtue of a sheriff's sale, it really was. Conscious, at the same time, of the folly of provoking a man who had him so fully in his power, he withheld the insulting retort that was on his lips, and turning away abruptly, left the office. Malcolm was sitting in his store on the next day, brooding over his unhappy condition when a sheriff's officer came in, and informed him that Dunbar had ordered a sale of everything in a week, and that the store must be immediately closed, and the key delivered into the officer's hands. Remonstrance was of no avail. The order was imperative, and the officer executed a portion of it by closing the windows and doors with his own hands. As the family could not leave the premises forthwith, a watchman was stationed in the store and dwelling to see that nothing was removed. For a few hours, Malcolm was completely paralysed. He saw himself hopelessly ruined, and his family reduced in a single moment to want. After the first shock had subsided, his mind again became active, and indignation at the conduct of the lawyer set him to thinking whether it were not in his power to circumvent him. Not being able to hit upon any plan, for Dunbar was holding him as with the grip of a bear, he determined to consult a lawyer, muttering to himself as he came to this conclusion— "Fight dog with dog! It's the only way." So with a fee of five dollars in hand he went to a lawyer and stated his case. "He's got you in his power, certainly," the lawyer said; "but as the sale will not take place for a week, you might have some things removed. There would be no injustice in this, for his claim was only three hundred dollars, and your goods, you say, are worth at least fifteen hundred, all of which are legally his." "But he has a sheriff's watchman on the premises." "Indeed! That is bad. Still, the thing can be managed, though it must be done adroitly. What kind of a man is the watchman?" "A good-natured Irishman, who can never get done expressing his sympathy for me." "He's short and stout, and fifty years old, at least?" "Yes."