Jeroloman, bending over, recovered his hat. Before it, a picture floated. It represented an assassin's child gutting the estate of a son whom the father had murdered. It was a bit too cubist. Somewhere he had seen another picture of that school. It showed a young woman falling downstairs. He did not know but that he might reproduce it. At least he could try. Meanwhile it was just as well to take the model's measure and again his eyes fastened on Dunwoodie. "What do you suggest?" Dunwoodie, loosening his clasped hands, beat with the fingers a tattoo on his waistcoat. "Let me see. There is 'The Raven,' the first primer, the multiplication table. Is it for your enlightenment that you ask?" Jeroloman moistened his lips. Precise, careful, capable, intensely respectable, none the less he could have struck him. A moment only. From the sleeve of his coat he flicked, or affected to flick, a speck. "Yes, thank you, for my enlightenment. You have not told me what your client wants." "What a woman wants is usually beyond masculine comprehension." Methodically Jeroloman dusted his hat. "You might enquire. We, none of us, favour litigation. In the interests of my client I always try to avoid it and, while at present. I have no authority, yet----Well, well! Between ourselves, how would a ponderable amount, four or five thousand, how would that do?" Blandly Dunwoodie looked at this man, who was trying to take Cassy's measure. "For what?" "To settle it." That bland air, where was it? In its place was the look which occasionally the ruffian turned on the Bench. "Hum! Ha! Then for your further enlightenment let me inform you that my client will settle it for what she is legally entitled to, not one ponderable dollar more, not one ponderable copper less." Mentally, from before that look, Jeroloman was retreating. Mentally as well, already he had reversed himself. He had judged Dunwoodie old, back-number, living in the past. Instead of which the fossil was what he always had been--just one too many. Though not perhaps for him. Not for Randolph F. Jeroloman. Not yet, at any rate. The points advanced were new, undigested, perhaps inexact, filled with discoverable flaws. Though, even so, how M. P. would view them was another kettle of fish. But that was as might be. He put on his hat and stood up. "Very good. I will give the matter my attention." "Do," Dunwoodie, with that same look, retorted, "And meanwhile I will apply for letters of administration. Hum! Ha! My compliments to your good lady." He turned in his chair. Attention, indeed! He knew what that meant. The matter would be submitted to M. P. The old devil had not a leg to stand on, he lacked even a crutch, and in that impotent, dismembered and helpless condition he would be thrown out of court. A ponderable amount! Hum!