The old man did not reply immediately. He had taken up his spectacles again, and was rubbing them and rubbing them with his red bandana handkerchief. “Those papers, Master Burton,” said he, at last, “bear mightily hard upon me. They make it appear like I kidnapped Jacky myself. Here be you spending all your time a-hunting up evidence to make it look like as though I had dealt foul with my own flesh and blood—and you a neighbor of mine, and I one who hath put many and many a good guinea’s worth of work into your way.” “That last is true enough, Master Tipton,” said the little lawyer; “and, as I said before, I, for one, have no wish to do aught to harm you. Just you think, Master Tipton,—that was why I sent for you to come and see me; else I would have sent these papers straight to Sir Henry Ballister instead of showing them, first of all, to you.” “I be much beholden to you, neighbor,” said the old man. “But these papers look mightily ill for me. Suppose anything should happen to you, and those papers should fall into strange hands; how would it be with me then? Ha’ ye thought of that?” “Ay, ay,” said the little lawyer, “I have thought of it, and it is all arranged for, Master Tipton. If aught should happen to me, I have so arranged it that only a part of these papers go to Sir Henry Ballister. All that concerns you is cared for, so that no harm shall happen you.” “I be much beholden to you, neighbor,” said the old man again. “And now,” said the attorney, after another little pause of silence, “what have you to say, Master Tipton? What am I to write to Sir Henry Ballister?” Then the old America merchant arose: “Well, master,” said he, “all this be so sudden that, to be sure, I don’t know what to say. Give me time to think over it, and then I will talk to you in full some other day. Let me see; this be Wednesday. On Friday next I’ll meet you here, and tell you all that I have to say. Can you give me so long as that?” “To be sure I can,” said the lawyer. “Take your own time, and ’twill suit me.” “Very well, then, on Friday next,” said the old man. It was the next day that the little lawyer returned home by night from the King’s Arms Coffee-House, where he used to spend an occasional bachelor’s evening gossiping with his cronies over his toddy, or talking politics.