Should any one of St. George's personal friends accompany him--men like Kennedy, or General Hardisty, or some well-known man from the Eastern Shore--one of the Dennises, or Joyneses, or Irvings--the pleasure was intensified, the incident being of great professional advantage. “I have just met old General Hardisty,” he would say--“he was at our house,” the knowing ones passing a wink around, and the uninitiated having all the greater respect and, therefore, all the greater confidence in that rising young firm of “Pawson & Pawson, Attorneys and Counsellors at Law--Wills drawn and Estates looked after.”
That this rarest of gentlemen, of all men in the world, should be made the victim of a group of schemers who had really tricked him of almost all that was left of his patrimony, and he a member of his own profession, was to Pawson one of the great sorrows of his life. That he himself had unwittingly helped in its culmination made it all the keener. Only a few weeks had passed since that eventful day when St. George had sent Todd down to arrange for an interview, an event which was followed almost immediately by that gentleman in person. He remembered his delight at the honor conferred upon him; he recalled how he had spent the whole of that and the next day in the attempt to negotiate the mortgage on the old home at a reasonable rate of interest; he recalled, too, how he could have lowered the rate had St. George allowed him more time. “No, pay it and get rid of them!” St. George had said, the “them” being part of the very accounts over which the two were poring. And his patron had showed the same impatience when it came to placing the money in the bank. Although his own lips were sealed professionally by reason of the interests of another client, he had begged St. George, almost to the verge of interference, not to give it to the Patapsco, until he had been silenced with: “Have them put it to my credit, sir. I have known every member of that bank for years.”
All these things were, of course, unknown to Harry, the ultimate beneficiary. Who had filled the bucket, and how and why, were unimportant facts to him. That it was full, and ready for his use, brought with it the same sense of pleasure he would have felt on a hot day at Moorlands when he had gone to the old well, drawn up the ice-cold water, and, plunging in the sweet-smelling gourd, had drank to his heart's content.
