"Well, it is, and it isn't," she began.

"Better be honest, Mrs. Munger," said Putney. "You can't do anything for

a client who won't be honest with his attorney. That's what I have to

continually impress upon the reprobates who come to me. I say, 'It don't

matter what you've done; if you expect me to get you off, you've got to

make a clean breast of it.' They generally do; they see the sense of it."

They all laughed, and Mr. Gerrish said, "Mr. Putney is one of Hatboro's

privileged characters, Miss Kilburn."

"Thank you, Billy," returned the lawyer, with mock-tenderness. "Now, Mrs.

Munger, out with it!"

"You'll have to tell him sooner or later, Mrs. Munger!" said Mrs. Gerrish,

with overweening pleasure in her acquaintance with both of these superior

people. "He'll get it out of you anyway." Her husband looked at her, and

she fell silent.

Mrs. Munger swept her with a tolerant smile as she looked up at Putney.

"Why, it's really Miss Kilburn's affair," she began; and she laid the case

before the lawyer with a fulness that made Annie wince.

Putney took a piece of tobacco from his pocket, and tore off a morsel with

his teeth. "Excuse me, Annie! It's a beastly habit. But it's saved me from

something worse. _You_ don't know what I've been; but anybody in

Hatboro' can tell you. I made my shame so public that it's no use trying

to blink the past. You don't have to be a hypocrite in a place where

everybody's seen you in the gutter; that's the only advantage I've got over

my fellow-citizens, and of course I abuse it; that's nature, you know. When

I began to pull up I found that tobacco helped me; I smoked and chewed

both; now I only chew. Well," he said, dropping the pathetic simplicity

with which he had spoken, and turning with a fierce jocularity from the

shocked and pitying look in Annie's face to Mrs. Munger, "what do you

propose to do? Brother Peck's head seems to be pretty level, in the

abstract."

"Yes," said Mrs. Munger, willing to put the case impartially; "and I should

be perfectly willing to drop the invited dance and supper, if it was

thought best, though I must say I don't at all agree with Mr. Peck in

principle. I don't see what would become of society."

"You ought to be in politics, Mrs. Munger," said Putney. "Your readiness to

sacrifice principle to expediency shows what a reform will be wrought when

you ladies get the suffrage. What does Brother Gerrish think?"




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