Page:Train - Tutt and Mr Tutt (Scribner, 1922).djvu/152

 the careful enunciation of a New England school-mistress.

"What five thousand dollars?"

"The five you're going to hand me before I leave this office, Sammy darling," she retorted dazzlingly.

Tutt's head swam and he sank weakly into his swivel chair. It was incredible that he, a veteran of the criminal bar, should have been so tricked. Instantly, as when a reagent is injected into a retort of chemicals and a precipitate is formed leaving the previously cloudy liquid like crystal, Tutt's addled brain cleared. He was caught! The victim of his own asininity. He dared not look at this woman who had wound him thus round her finger, innocent as he was of any wrongdoing; he was ashamed to think of his wife.

"My Lord!" he murmured, realizing for the first time the depth of his weakness.

"Oh, it isn't as bad as that!" she laughed. "Remember you were going to charge Oaklander ten thousand. This costs you only five. Special rates for physicians and lawyers!"

"And suppose I don't choose to give it to you?" he asked.

"Listen here, you funny little man!" she answered in caressing tones that made him writhe. "You'd stand for twenty if I insisted on it. Oh,