“Why, there you’re rather fast, Lawyer Lightwood,” he replied, in a remonstrant manner. “Don’t you see, Lawyer Lightwood? There you’re a little bit fast. I’m going to earn from five to ten thousand pound by the sweat of my brow; and as a poor man doing justice to the sweat of my brow, is it likely I can afford to part with so much as my name without its being took down?”

Deferring to the man’s sense of the binding powers of pen and ink and paper, Lightwood nodded acceptance of Eugene’s nodded proposal to take those spells in hand. Eugene, bringing them to the table, sat down as clerk or notary.

“Now,” said Lightwood, “what’s your name?”

But further precaution was still due to the sweat of this honest fellow’s brow.

“I should wish, Lawyer Lightwood,” he stipulated, “to have that t’other Governor as my witness that what I said I said. Consequent, will the t’other Governor be so good as chuck me his name and where he lives?”