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PAINTED ROCK

as he understood it was a kind of plant that did not flourish in the sun-dried spaces of Texas and the West. It tickled me fairly to death when he called a person learned in the law "a law-sharp" for the first time, even though he put it in "quotes," and added that Silas said, "My son, I'd never have taken you for a law-sharp."

"I'm in great doubt as to what I can do," said the new man underneath Tom Willett, "for the law can't be made to work here. I took the advice of a notary in Painted Rock on an imaginary case, as I didn't care to give anyone a chance to put this Cow Creek ruffian up to my being on his trail, and he was very unsatisfactory. I'm thinking about what you used to say of the law. There seems something in it here. I used to think you talked rot when you came to me in the City. Do you remember saying that the seeds of law grew everywhere, but that the Attorney-General himself wouldn't recognise the relationship between his fine conservatory products and the seedlings on the prairie? There's a lot to this notion of yours."

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