This is an adaptation of a game that is as old as the hills--the one where the solicitors would go up to a farmhouse, sell a man a sewing-machine or a cream separator at a ridiculous figure, let him sign what he thought was a contract to pay a certain amount a month for twelve months--and then take the promissory note which he really had signed down to the bank and discount it.
Instead of a promissory note, they made this a contract and a lease.
And just to make it good, they had their confederate, a legalized notary public, put his seal upon it as a witness.

You can't remember when all this happened ?" "According to Jenkins--who put the notary seal on there--the whole thing was put over about a week or so before I left for the West.
That's the date on them too.

About that time, I remember, I had a good many papers to sign.

A lot of legal stuff, if you'll remember, came up about father's estate, in which my signature was more of a form than anything else.

I naturally suspected nothing, and in one or two instances signed without reading." "And signed away your birthright--to this contract and lease.