rejection, if the party do not mean to assent; as when a merchant writes
to another, that he is against a certain day, to send him a certain
commodity, at a certain price, unless he shall previously forbid."
Opposite to this, Mr. Smith has written in pencil, "_Surely one man
cannot throw the duty of refusal on another, [in] that way?_" In the
course of a little discussion which we had on this subject, I said,
"Suppose the parties have had previously similar transactions?"--"Ah,"
he answered, "that might make a difference, and evidence a _contract_ to
the effect stated; but as nakedly enunciated in the text, I think It
cannot be the law of Scotland, or law any where." He made many
interesting and valuable remarks from time to time on Scotch law, and
expressed a high opinion of the work in question, referring to every
portion of it as readily as though it had been his familiar text-book
for years. I often found him reading the numbers of the Queen's Bench,
Common Pleas, and Exchequer Reports; and he once said, "I have a good
many arrears to get through, in this way, before the beginning of
term!" One day I saw a prodigious pile of law papers lying on his table,
which had just arrived from London. "Why, what are these, my dear
Smith?" said I earnestly--for he lay on the sofa in a state of miserable
exhaustion. After some minutes' pause, he replied, "It is a very
troublesome case. I have to reply or demur to some very harassing pleas
of ----."--"But why not postpone them till near the end of October?"
"When I am not fatigued, papers amuse me, and occupy my attention." I
offered to him my services. "No, thank you--it would fatigue me more to
explain the previous state of matters, with which I am familiar, than to
draw the pleadings"--and he did it himself. On another occasion, I saw
him sitting in his easy chair, deadly pale. When I had placed myself
beside him, he said in a faint tone, but calmly and deliberately, "This
morning a very serious thing has happened to me," and he mentioned a new
and very alarming feature in his complaint, which, alas! fully justified