Talk Is Cheap, Until You Hire A Lawyer

Talk is cheap, until you hire a lawyer.
Ginny — 15 Sep 1998, 7:01 PM

Midday in Voyager City. The streets were full of townspeople going about the business of providing a back-drop for the other, more interesting citizens. Several youthful residents had stopped to see Joe Carey, the local tailor, at his shop and pick up new clothes--dresses for the young women, shirts for the young men--that had been ordered after the mercantile had run a very successful sale on callico the previous month. Carey had marvelled at the fact that all of the sale callico consisted of prints with red as the predominant color, but he was a tailor, not a fashion consultant, and he dismissed it as one of those odd coincidences in life.

As he stood in his door, waving good-bye to the pretty red-headed woman who was often seen on the town sidewalks in earnest conversation with other townfolk whose names he didn't know, the 10:15 a.m. stage rolled into town, down the main street, and past his shop. Carey was impressed. It was only 12:47 p.m.--the driver had arrived an hour and a half earlier than usual. The tailor wondered what had so motivated him today.

As Carey contemplated this question, the driver pulled his team of horses up in front of the stage coach offices. The stage coach had barely stopped rolling, when the driver leapt from his seat, pulled open the coach door, and hurriedly lowered the step from the door to the ground. He reached in and helped a woman step down to the street. And what a striking figure of a woman she was. Dressed from head to toe in maroon and wearing an elegant, broad-brimmed hat trimmed in dyed-to-match ostrich feathers, she gripped a large black satchel in one elegant hand, which the driver immediately offered to carry for her.

"Why, thank you, kind sir," the woman in maroon stated, her voice musical with a soft southern accent. "We did very well on time, didn't we?"

The driver hastened to answer, in very respectful tones. "Yes, ma'am. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

The woman in maroon smiled. "Only if it's no trouble. Have my bags taken to the best hotel in town, order me a bath and a full English tea to be ready in exactly one hour and a half, and inform the marshal that I will expect to see my client, the falsely accused Sevenita, within the quarter hour."

"Yes, ma'am. That'll be no trouble at all", the driver replied. "Anything else?"

The woman in maroon paused, her really beautiful brown eyes scanning the street and surrounding buildings. "Do something about all this annoying red callico, will you?" And with that, she swept past the driver and walked purposefully toward the saloon.