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LEAVES FROM AN ENGLISH SOLICITOR'S NOTE BOOK. VIII. "SAVED BY A PANCAKE" OR "OLD HARBOTTLE'S WILL" . BY BAXTER BORRET. (Registered at Ottawa in accordance with the Canadian Copyright Act.)

THE eccentricities of testators are un fathomable; the craft and subtlety of a wily widow are immeasurable. The story which I am now going to relate exemplifies both these propositions. Samuel Harbottle had lived a bachelor all his life; at the age of seventy-five he fell into the snares of a wily widow. He had not a relative in the wide world, and very few friends, only two who play any part in this history; one a cast-off lawyer's clerk named Brooks, who picked up a precarious existence by drawing wills and other legal documents on the sly; the other friend was a foreigner named Al bert, whose wife was an intimate friend of the wily widow, and of her then recently defunct husband. Old Harbottle had in an unguarded moment spoken to the widow of his wish to find a housekeeper to look after his domestic wants; a few innocent questions skilfully put had elicited from him an admis sion that he had plenty of money and no rela tives; thereupon she set to work to angle, and very soon hooked her fish, but the land ing of her prize was a matter of greater dif ficulty. After the time and place had been fixed for the wedding, which was to take place strictly on the quiet in Birmingham, two days before the appointed time old Har bottle had a fall and injured his leg, and sent his friend Brooks to interview the widow, to ask her to have the nuptials postponed. The answer given was of so very guarded a kind that Brooks scented mischief in the air, and advised the old man to look out or he would have an action for breach of promise of mar riage brought against him; and then came in the craft of the cast-off lawyer's clerk; he advised him, at any personal inconvenience,

to present himself at the appointed church on the day and at the time fixed for the wed ding, and to make, so to say, a legal tender of himself before action, according to con tract, in the presence of a witness, and there would be a bar to any action forever afterwards. This advice old Harbottle pro ceeded to carry out; starting on the ap pointed day, with Brooks for a witness, he took train to Birmingham, and arrived at the church at the time fixed. But the se cret had leaked out somehow, and the wily widow followed him by the next train, met the limping bridegroom just as he was leav ing the church; with a sweet smile she apolo gized for having kept him waiting, summoned the parson from his rectory close by, and landed her fish. Brooks was left to slink home in disgusted solitude; the bride em braced her limping spouse, and said her own house was waiting, swept and garnished for their reception, and there we had better leave them to enjoy their honeymoon. Two days afterwards she took him to his lawyer's office, where he executed a will, leaving to her, absolutely, everything he possessed. In the course of this story I shall have to speak of several wills, and will call this one "will No. i." On the same day he presented his bride with a very magnificent necklace of dia monds, which, I may mention, he had casu ally shown to her before asking her to marry him. Alas for the craftiness of woman! She showed them to her friend Mrs. Albert, whose husband showed them to a friendly pawnbroker, who unkindly declared them to be the most perfect imitation of real dia monds he had ever seen. Then followed tears, heartburnings and upbraiding; also a