CHAPTER XIX.
THE DUSKY LEVELS.
The new son-in-law, left alone with Judge Custis, asked to be propped up
in bed, and nothing was visible that would support his pillow but the
aged leather hat-box that Custis, with a wry face, brought to do duty.
"My illness is unfortunate," he gasped; "not only to me, but to the new
ties I have formed; to the mutual interest my wife and I have in making
up your losses on Nassawongo furnace, which we are all the poorer by to
that amount; and to a suitor whose cause I have taken up. I have bought
an interest in a great lawsuit."
"Then the day of reckoning of your enemies has come, Milburn."
"Not yet," said the sick man, with a proud flash of his eyes, "unless I
am no merchant and you are no lawyer, and the first I will not concede."
"Nor I the second," exclaimed the Judge, with some pride and temper.
"You were once a good lawyer, if visionary," resumed the money-lender,
with scant ceremony. "Had we been able to respect each other we might
have been confederated in things valuable to ourselves and to our time
and place. But that is past, and you do not possess my confidence as my
legal agent, my attorney. I wish you to get another advocate for me."
"I am willing to be useful, even without your compliments," the Judge
said, remembering his Christian resolution. "We will not quarrel, if I
can serve you."
"I do not wish to hurt your feelings, but my strength is not great
enough for unmeaning flattery.
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