The Judge winced and glanced nervously into the galleries.
"Don't worry, your Honour. If you take the medicine I prescribe, amputation will not be necessary. Let me read the letter. It's brief but to the point:
To John Graham, Esq.
Dear Sir: The secret of Butler's possession of your estate is simple. Under his authority as United States Judge, he ordered its confiscation, forced his wife to buy it fot $2,800, at a fake sale, which had not been advertised, and later had it reconveyed to him. His wife refused to live in the house, sent her daughter to school in Washington, and died two years later from the conscious dishonour she had been obliged at least in secret to share. A suit brought before the United States Supreme Court will restore your property, hurl a scoundrel from the bench, and cover him with everlasting infamy.
"An anonymous slanderer!" snotted the Judge.
"Yet he expresses himself with vigour and accuracy, and his words ate backed by circumstantial evidence."
Butler sprang to his feet livid with rage crying:
"John Graham, you're drunk!"
"Just drunk enough to talk entertainingly to you, Judge."
