“This is unwarrantable and infamous ! My relations with Mr. Glenarm are none of your business. When you remember that after being deserted by his own flesh and blood he appealed to me, going so far as to intrust all his affairs to my care at his death, your reflection is an outrageous insult. I am not accountable to you or any one else !”

“Really, there’s a good deal in all that," said Larry. "We don’t pretend to any judicial functions. We are perfectly willing to submit the whole business and all my client’s acts to the authorities.”

(I would give much if I could reproduce some hint of the beauty of that word authorities as it rolled from Larry’s tongue ! )

“Then, in God’s name, do it, you blackguards !” roared Pickering.

Stoddard, sitting on a table, knocked his heels together gently. Larry recrossed his legs and blew a cloud of smoke. Then, after a quarter of a minute in which he gazed at the ceiling with his quiet blue eyes, he said

“Yes; certainly, there are always the authorities. And as I have a tremendous respect for your American institutions I shalt at once act on your suggestion. Mr. Pickering, the estate is richer than you thought it was. It holds, or will hold, your notes given to the decedent for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”

He drew from his pocket a brown envelope, walked to where I stood and placed it in my hands.

At the same time Stoddard’s big figure grew active, and before I realized that Pickering had leaped toward the packet, the executor was sitting in a chair, where the chaplain had thrown him. He rallied promptly, stuffing his necktie into his waistcoat; he even laughed a little.

“So much old paper ! You gentlemen are perfectly welcome to it.”

“Thank you !” jerked Larry.

“Mr. Glenarm and I had many transactions together, and he must have forgotten to destroy those papers.”

“Quite likely,” I remarked. “It is interesting to know that Sister Theresa wasn’t his only debtor.”

Pickering stepped to the door and called the sheriff.

“I shall give you until to-morrow morning at nine o’clock to vacate the premises. The court understands this situation perfectly. These claims are utterly worthless, as I am ready to prove.”

“Perfectly, perfectly, repeated the sheriff. ”

“I believe that is all,” said Larry, pointing to the door with his pipe.

The sheriff was regarding him with particular attention.

“What did I understand your name to be ?” he demanded.

“Laurance Donovan,” Larry replied coolly.

Pickering seemed to notice the name now and his eyes lighted disagreeably.

“I think I have heard of your friend before,” he said, turning to me. “I congratulate you on the international reputation of your counsel. He’s esteemed so highly in Ireland that they offer a large reward for his return. Sheriff, I think we have finished our business for to-day.”