Note 89 — XXV. THE PRUDENT STEWARD.

A case emerged lately in the courts of this country, in which a proprietor, who had lost very large sums by the unfaithfulness of his agent, prosecuted the parties for restitution, on the ground of the agent’s bad faith in the transactions. The case was protracted, and I lost sight of it before the solution was reached; but it is enough for my present purpose that a plea was actually raised to obtain from one debtor the price of a hundred measures of oil instead of fifty, which he acknowledged, on the alleged ground that the absconded steward had corruptly and for his own interest sacrificed the rights of his employer.[89]