Leaves from an English Solicitors Note Book.
581
LEAVES FROM AN ENGLISH SOLICITOR'S NOTE BOOK. III. WHAT'S IN A NAME? A STORY OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY. By Baxter Borret.
IN writing the account of the narrow es the payments of income were to be sus cape I had from liability to a charge of pended at the discretion of the trustees, and professional negligence in the case of the handed over to his sisters. wills of the two maiden sisters living at One day, about the year 1865, old Canon Croomedene, I was reminded of another in Croome had a sudden stroke, and died in a cident which occurred to me earlier in my few hours, before George could be sum career, before I left London for Georgetown, moned home from abroad. I had arranged in which George Croome, the brother of the with all the honest creditors. Canon Croome old sisters, was concerned. I first became had insisted in paying in full all debts for acquainted with the family through staying necessary expenses of living, going indeed a one summer in a charming village on the good way beyond the strict interpretation of borders of Epping Forest, in the county of the word " necessary," but he sternly re Essex, about twenty-five miles out of Lon fused to pay gambling debts, or money don, at the time I was reading up for my claimed by professional money-lenders. final examination. Of this village, Canon The principal debt hanging over George's Croome, their father, was the rector; an head was one to a notorious money-lender acquaintance made casually in the railway named Grimes, of whom I will give a de train ripened into intimacy; and when I scription later on; meanwhile I have a started in practice in London, Canon pleasanter picture to draw of a really faith Croome was the earliest client whose name ful clerk. What a blessing to a lawyer a really clever, trustworthy clerk is! Such a was recorded on my books. It was at this time that the worthy old blessing I possessed in the person of George clergyman consulted me as to the many Carter, who must at one time have been a claims made upon him by creditors of his queer character in his way. He knew some thing of everything, how and where he ac scapegrace son, George, and I felt com pelled to advise him to let me persuade quired his knowledge of all the shady cor George to go and live abroad out of their ners and byepaths of the dark side of reach, while I would endeavor to arrange London life without getting his own per terms with the most reasonable of them. sonal character sullied passed my com So it was that one of the last acts I was prehension. I know nothing of his boy hood, he was thirty-five years old before called upon to do for the good old clergy man was to prepare a will for him by which I stumbled across him; by some little ser the income only of a considerable capital vice I rendered to him, I had saved his sum was made payable to George by home from being wrecked by a miserable monthly payments at the discretion of money-lender. I had taken the matter up at the request of a relative, and his gratitude trustees, and in case of the income becom to me for saving his wife from want and his ing alienated by act of law, such as bank ruptcy, or by any act on George's own part, home from wreck constituted a fund upon
