"Then," added the spirit, his voice husky with the remembrance of his dishonour, "came an interview that makes me blush, even though I have no cheek on which to display that manifestation of shame. My body sprang forward as the pistol met my eye, and, snatching the weapon from the floor, flung it out through the window into the court, where it exploded, the jar of contact with the stone walk being sufficient to discharge it. As the sharp report of the pistol echoed through the court my client threw himself flat on his face, and prostrate there at my feet began to utter a string of incoherent lamentations and despairing requests for mercy at my hands which were painful to hear, and I judged from what meaning I could patch together from his jumble of words, that he deemed me an emissary of Satan,--and I think he was right. "'What does this mean?' queried the fiend within me. 'Murder or suicide? If you contemplated suicide, I forgive you; if murder--' "'I was afraid,' gasped my unhappy client. 'Your power was so terrible; the effect of your words so awful, that I--' "'Ah!' interrupted the fiend. 'I see. It was murder you were prepared to do in case we should not agree, and the power of my eye should chance to be exerted to win you from your determination whatever it may have been.' "'No--not that--not that!' shrieked my client. 'It was but the natural instinct of self-preservation that led me to--' "'You weaken your cause by your loquacity, my friend,' said the fiend. 'You suspected me of contemplating some dishonourable or cowardly act, and for that reason you entered the office of him who has saved your good name and your purse alike from them who would have robbed you of both, having so little sense of gratitude that you bring with you an instrument of death. Very well, let it be so. I am satisfied if you are. I might do that to you now which would place you in far worse estate than your poor brother is in. If you had your pistol in your hand, aimed at my heart, you would still be powerless to do me an injury, for with one glance of my eye I could force you to turn the muzzle to your own head, and with another compel you to empty its leaden load into your own brains. Your suspicions are insulting, but an insult from one of your calibre to one of mine is as the sting of a fly to the elephant; I pass it over and charge it on the bill. Ten thousand pounds for trying the case, two thousand five hundred for accepting your insult, two thousand five hundred for condoning it, and in one hour must this money be in my hands with a letter--a letter written and signed by you, expressing your satisfaction with the manner of my conducting the case, and concluding with an allusion to your surprise that my charge is so moderate." "'And if I refuse to submit to this outrage?' queried my client, lashed into a show of courage which he really did not feel.