Putney.

"Well, it is, and it isn't," she began.

"Better be honest, Mrs. Munger," said Putney. "You can't do anything for
a client who won't be honest with his attorney. That's what I have to
continually impress upon the reprobates who come to me. I say, 'It don't
matter what you've done; if you expect me to get you off, you've got to
make a clean breast of it.' They generally do; they see the sense of it."

They all laughed, and Mr. Gerrish said, "Mr. Putney is one of Hatboro's
privileged characters, Miss Kilburn."

"Thank you, Billy," returned the lawyer, with mock-tenderness. "Now, Mrs.
Munger, out with it!"

"You'll have to tell him sooner or later, Mrs. Munger!" said Mrs. Gerrish,
with overweening pleasure in her acquaintance with both of these superior
people. "He'll get it out of you anyway." Her husband looked at her, and
she fell silent.

Mrs. Munger swept her with a tolerant smile as she looked up at Putney.
"Why, it's really Miss Kilburn's affair," she began; and she laid the case
before the lawyer with a fulness that made Annie wince.

Putney took a piece of tobacco from his pocket, and tore off a morsel with
his teeth. "Excuse me, Annie! It's a beastly habit. But it's saved me from
something worse. _You_ don't know what I've been; but anybody in
Hatboro' can tell you. I made my shame so public that it's no use trying
to blink the past. You don't have to be a hypocrite in a place where