Overtop listened to the statement of the case with professional attentiveness.  He was sub-thinking, all the time, what an extremely sensible woman Miss Pillbody was, not to allow herself to be cheated, but to go to law in defence of her rights.  He assured his interesting client that she could count on his best services, and that she might consider the one hundred and fifty dollars as good as recovered.  From this point the conversation glided off into a wilderness of general topics.  Overtop had a habit (a bad one, it must be confessed) of sounding people’s mental depths.  He found that Miss Pillbody was no shallow thinker.  He left the house at eleven o’clock, supposing it was ten, and had a delightful vision, that night, of the little round table and the teapot, and the presiding angel.

Next day, Overtop wrote the following letter: 

     New York,—.

     MR. J. CUDGEON: 

SIR:  Enclosed is a bill of items, amounting to one hundred and fifty dollars, for your wife’s tuition at Miss Pillbody’s private school.  Be good enough to look it over, and inform me, to-morrow, what you will do about it.  I will tell you candidly, that it is for our interest, as a young law firm, to sue you for the debt; but my client will not consent to this, until all other efforts fail, out of regard to the feelings of Mrs. C.

     Your obedient servant,

     OVERTOP & MALTBOY,

No ------ Building,

     J. CUDGEON, Esq.

Overtop remembered that one J. Cudgeon had run for the Assembly at the previous fall election, and he surmised that, being a politician and a public character, J. Cudgeon would not like to see the bill of items in print.  Overtop reasoned correctly; for, at ten A.M. the following day, that gentleman called at the office and paid the one hundred and fifty dollars, and said that he was very much obliged to Overtop & Maltboy for their gentlemanly conduct in the affair.  Mr. Gudgeon had not been aware of his wife’s pupilage at Miss Pillbody’s private school, though he had observed (he added, confidentially), for some months past, a slight improvement in her grammar.  “I am not ashamed to say that we were poor once,” said Mr. Gudgeon, with a glow of pride.

“When Overtop placed the one hundred and fifty dollars in the white hand of the schoolmistress, she looked at him with gratitude and admiration, which more than repaid him.  Not only this, but she asked him, with not a particle of hesitation, how much his fee was.

“Fee!” exclaimed Overtop, a little nettled at the implied insult. (Young lawyers are apt to be.) “Nothing, Miss Pillbody; decidedly nothing.”

“But I prefer to pay you, Mr. Overtop.  Why should you work for me for nothing, when I am not willing to do the same thing for Mrs. Gudgeon?  ‘The laborer is worthy of his hire,’” she added, laughing.  “I set that adage in a copy book to-night.”