"Not from me," said the Honorable John Ruffin with unabated sweetness.
"I will have it! I'll show you what's what, if you try to come any of these swindling games over me! I will have it!" roared Mr. Montague Fitzgerald.
"You can get it from the devil—or the High Court," said the Honorable John Ruffin with cloying sweetness.
Mr. Montague Fitzgerald burst into a warm perspiration. The Honorable John Ruffin's first suggestion was absurd—there was no money there. His second suggestion was little better—the High Court was the last place to which Mr. Montague Fitzgerald wished to go for several months. On a recent visit to it, to obtain a little matter of sixty per cent. from another unfortunate client, the judge had taken occasion to remark on his methods of dealing with inexperienced youth with a crude frankness which had considerably contracted the sphere of his lucrative usefulness to the community; he wished it contracted no further.
He hesitated a moment; then in a very different, indeed a honeyed, tone, he said, "Now, Mr. Ruffin, you're a man of honor—"
