50 A LAWSUIT AND A COMPROMISE. 



" I threw them over, one at a time, the old fellow last, and 

 as he slipped from my hand into the river, he thrust his 

 ugly face out of the water, and said, coolly, ' Good morn- 

 ing! When you come our way again, drop in.' 



"'No,' said I, Til drop a line.' I remembered how I 

 'dropped in,' over on Long Lake, one day, and had no 

 inclination to drop in to the St. Lawrence, especially when 

 there are old lawyer fishes there to summon me for assault 

 and battery on a " Shatagee trout.' " 



" Doctor," said Hank Martin, one of our boatmen, who 

 had been listening to the Doctor's narrative, " I don't want 

 to be considered for'ard or sassy, but I'd like to know how 

 much of these kinds of stories we hired folks are obligated 

 to believe ?" 



" Well," replied the Doctor, " there are three of you in 

 all, and between you, you must make up a reasonable case, 

 as Spalding would say, of faith in everything you. may hear. 

 This you may do by dividing it up among you." 



"Very good," said Martin, with imperturbable gravity; 

 " I only wanted a fair understanding of the matter on the 

 start." 



