Suddenly a strange rumor ran through and when he compared the dates of their Paris that' the mysteries of this sinister disappearance with that of his meeting with affair were becoming highly interesting. Desrues, he could not refrain from crying It was said, on every side, that the dead out : " I know where Madame de la Motte is. body of Madame de la Motte was buried in She is buried in the Rue de la Mortellerie." a cellar in the Rue de la Mortellerie. On her part, Madame Masson, the proprie The reader has not forgotten Mevret, the tor of "The Pewter Pot," who had not seen man of the Rue des Haudriettes, the creditor the lessee of her cellar for a long time, and who followed with a suspicious look the little who knew, from Rogeot, that his dog howled man and his cart. On first hearing of the and scratched at the cellar door, had the idea crimes imputed to Desrues, Mevret attached that her Du Coudray could be no other than great importance to the encounter of that Desrues. She did what Mevret ought to day. When he learned that they were un have done, — she notified the commissary of able to find the bodies of the two victims, police of her quarter. {To be c tinned.')
A NICE QUESTION. Bv A. J. Eddy. A FEW days ago several lawyers — all well known at the Chicago Bar — were discussing a matter which, in the minds of some present, involved a nice point in pro fessional courtesy and ethics; and the dif ferent and conflicting opinions expressed warranted the writer in believing that a more general discussion of the question would be of interest. In the turn the discussion took, the ques tion was considered in two phases, so to speak, — First. How far is it permissible and proper for opposing parties to pending litigation to confer together and arrive at a settlement without the intervention of their attorneys of record? Second. How far is it permissible and proper for an attorney on one side to ap proach or confer with the opposite party relative to a settlement without the inter vention of his attorney? In this day of innumerable suits and con tingent fees, these questions are of consid erable and of increasing importance; and attorneys for both plaintiffs and defendants
should consider them in all their bearings, lest on the one hand they fail to fully pro tect their clients, or on the other hand to lay themselves open to charges of unprofes sional and discourteous conduct, either horn of the dilemma being equally sharp and fatal to professional success and reputation. It is obvious that difficulties of this kind arise mainly from two classes of cases : (i) Those taken upon contingent fees; (2) Those taken upon shares. There can be no question that agreements for contingent fees and cases on shares stand in the way of compromise and settlement, and encourage litigation. In every case where the fees of the plaintiff's attorney de pend upon his success, either in court or in extorting from the defendant a much larger sum than the plaintiff himself would have been willing to take, it is absolutely essen tial that the parties should be kept apart, — at swords' points, so to speak. The writer recalls several instances where the plaintiff's attorney, when he learned that the defend ant had personally or by his agent — not his attorney, and without the knowledge of his
