“One for maintaining an ornamental projection on your house—­a statue, I believe, of the Goddess Venus—­to project more than five feet beyond the building line—­Section One Hundred and Eighty-one of Article Fifteen of Chapter Twenty-three.

“One for having your area gate open outwardly instead of inwardly—­Section One Hundred and Sixty-four of Article Fourteen of Chapter Twenty-three.

“And one for failing to affix to the fanlight or door the street number of your house—­Section One Hundred and Ten of Article Ten of Chapter Twenty-three.

“I dare say there are others.”

“I’d trust you to find ’em!” agreed Mr. Pumpelly.  “Now what’s your proposition?  What does it cost?”

“It doesn’t cost anything at all!  Drop your proceedings and we’ll drop ours,” answered Bonnie genially.

“What do you say, Edgerton?” said Pumpelly, turning to the disgruntled Wilfred and for the first time in years assuming charge of his own domestic affairs.

“I should say that it was an excellent compromise!” answered the lawyer soulfully.  “There’s something in the Bible, isn’t there, about pulling the mote out of your own eye before attempting to remove the beam from anybody’s else?”

“I believe there is,” assented Bonnie politely. “‘You’re another’ certainly isn’t a statutory legal plea, but as a practical defense—­”

“Tit for tat!” said Mr. Edgerton playfully.  “Ha, ha!  Ha!”

“Ha, ha!  Ha!” mocked Mrs. Pumpelly, her nose high in air.  “A lot of good you did me!”

“By the way, young man,” asked Mr. Pumpelly, “whom do you say you represent?”

“Tutt & Tutt,” cooed Bonnie, instantly flashing one of the firm’s cards.

“Thanks,” said Pumpelly, putting it carefully into his pocket.  “I may need you sometime—­perhaps even sooner.  Now, if by any chance you’d care for a highball—­”

“Lead me right to it!” sighed Bonnie ecstatically.

“Me, too!” echoed Wilfred, to the great astonishment of those assembled.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

  “For twelve honest men have decided the cause,
   Who are judges alike of the fact and the laws.” 
      —­The Honest Jury.

“Lastly,” says Stevenson in his Letter to a Young Gentleman Who Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art, “we come to those vocations which are at once decisive and precise; to the men who are born with the love of pigments, the passion of drawing, the gift of music, or the impulse to create with words, just as other and perhaps the same men are born with the love of hunting, or the sea, or horses, or the turning lathe.  These are predestined; if a man love the labor of any trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.”