“That’s what boss sent _me_ for, instead o’ the ’prentices as was gettin’ their teeth cut. I cut mine at nine months old, with a hand-saw. Boss says if you don’t pay that bill he’ll sue you.” “Sue _me_? I’m a lawyer!” “It’s no matter for that! Lawyer or no lawyer, boss declares he’ll do it――so fork over!” “Declares he’ll sue me?” “As true as there’s another lawyer in all Filadelphy.” “That would be bad!” “Wouldn’t it?” “Silence, you vagabond. I suppose I must pay this,” muttered the attorney to himself. “It’s not my plan to pay these small bills! What is a lawyer’s profession good for, if he can’t get clear paying his own bills? He’ll sue me! ’Tis just five dollars! It comes hard, and he don’t want the money! His boy could have earned it in the time he has been sending him to me to dun for it.――So your master will sue for it if I don’t pay?” “He says he will do it, and charge you a new pair o’ shoes for me.” “Hark’ee. I can’t pay to-day; and so if your boss will sue, just be so kind as to ask him to employ me as his attorney.” “You?” “Yes; I’ll issue the writ, have it served, and then you see I shall put the costs into my own pocket, instead of seeing them go into another lawyer’s. So you see if I have to pay the bill I’ll make the costs. Capital idea.” The boy scratched his head a while, as if striving to comprehend this “capital idea,” and then shook it doubtingly. “I don’t know about this; it looks tricky. I’ll ask boss though, if as how you say you won’t pay it no how without being sued.” “I’d rather be sued if he’ll employ me, boy!” “But who’s to pay them costs――the boss?” The lawyer looked at once very serious, and then gave another of those long whistles peculiar to him. “Well, I am a sensible man, truly! My anxiety to get the costs of the suit blinded me to the fact that they had got to come out of one of my own pockets before they could be safely put into the other pocket! Ah; well, my boy, I suppose I must pay. Here is a five-dollar bill. Is it receipted?――it is so dirty and greasy I can’t see.” “It was nice and clean three months ago when boss gin it to me, and the writin’ shined like Knapp’s Blackin’――it’s torn so of a dunnin’ so much.” “Well, here’s your money,” said the man of law, taking a solitary five-dollar note from his watch fob; “now, tell your master, Mr. Last, that if he has any other accounts he wants sued, I will attend to them with the greatest pleasure.” “Thank’ee,” answered the boy, pocketing five, “but you is the only regular dunnin’ customer boss has, and now you’ve paid up, he hasn’t none but cash folks. Good day to you.” “Now there goes a five-dollar note that will do that fellow, Last, no good. I am in great want of it, but he is not. It is a five thrown away. It wouldn’t have left my pocket but that I was sure his patience was worn out, and that costs would come out of it. I like to have costs, but I don’t think a lawyer has anything to do with paying them.”