Part 34 (1/2)

He showed nothing of this in his face, and still sat there with his chin resting on his umbrella. But certainly stronger ideas than usual of the great wrongs which he had suffered did come into his head as he looked upon the paper at his feet. He began to wonder whether he would be justified in taking it up and inspecting it. But as he was thinking of this the pale-faced man rose from his chair, and after moving among the papers on the ground for an instant, selected this very doc.u.ment, and carried it with him to his table. Mr Ball, as his eyes followed the parchment, watched the young man dust it and open it, and then having flattened it with his hand, glance over it till he came to a certain spot. The pale-faced clerk, accustomed to such doc.u.ments, glanced over the ambages, the ”whereases,” the ”aforesaids,” the rich exuberance of ”admors.,” ”exors.,” and ”a.s.signs,” till he deftly came to the pith of the matter, and then he began to make extracts, a date here and a date there. John Ball watched him all the time, till the door was opened, and old Mr Slow himself appeared in the room.

He stepped across the papers to shake hands with his client, and then shook hands also with Mr Ball, whom he knew. His eye glanced at once down to the box, and after that over towards the pale-faced clerk.

Mr Ball perceived that the attorney had joined in his own mind the operation that was going on with these special doc.u.ments, and the presence of these two special visitors; and that he, in some measure, regretted the coincidence. There was something wrong, and John Ball began to consider whether the old lawyer could be an old scoundrel.

Some lawyers, he knew, were desperate scoundrels. He said nothing, however; but, obeying Mr Slow's invitation, followed him and his cousin into the sanctum sanctorum of the chambers.

”They didn't tell me you were here at first,” said the lawyer, in a tone of vexation, ”or I wouldn't have had you shown in there.”

John Ball thought that this was, doubtless, true, and that very probably they might not have been put in among those papers had Mr Slow known what was being done.

”The truth is,” continued the lawyer, ”the Duke of F----'s man of business was with me, and they did not like to interrupt me.”

Mr Slow was a grey-haired old man, nearer eighty than seventy, who, with the exception of a fortnight's holiday every year which he always spent at Margate, had attended those same chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields daily for the last sixty years. He was a stout, thickset man, very leisurely in all his motions, who walked slowly, talked slowly, read slowly, wrote slowly, and thought slowly; but who, nevertheless, had the reputation of doing a great deal of business, and doing it very well. He had a partner in the business, almost as old as himself, named Bideawhile; and they who knew them both used to speculate which of the two was the most leisurely. It was, however, generally felt that, though Mr Slow was the slowest in his speech, Mr Bideawhile was the longest in getting anything said.

Mr Slow would often beguile his time with unnecessary remarks; but Mr Bideawhile was so constant in beguiling his time, that men wondered how, in truth, he ever did anything at all. Of both of them it may be said that no men stood higher in their profession, and that Mr Ball's suspicions, had they been known in the neighbourhood of Lincoln's Inn, would have been scouted as utterly baseless. And, for the comfort of my readers, let me a.s.sure them that they were utterly baseless. There might, perhaps, have been a little vanity about Mr Slow as to the names of his aristocratic clients; but he was an honest, painstaking man, who had ever done his duty well by those who had employed him.

Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular? Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?

The old man seemed now to be a little fretful, and said something more about his sorrow at their having been sent into that room.

”We are so crowded,” he said, ”that we hardly know how to stir ourselves.”

Miss Mackenzie said it did not signify in the least. Mr Ball said nothing, but seated himself with his chin again resting on his umbrella.

”I was so sorry to see in the papers an account of your brother's death,” said Mr Slow.

”Yes, Mr Slow; he has gone, and left a wife and very large family.”

”I hope they are provided for, Miss Mackenzie.”

”No, indeed; they are not provided for at all. My brother had not been fortunate in business.”

”And yet he went into it with a large capital,--with a large capital in such a business as that.”

John Ball, with his chin on the umbrella, said nothing. He said nothing, but he winced as he thought whence the capital had come. And he thought, too, of those much-meaning words: ”Jonathan Ball to John Ball, junior--Deed of gift.”

”He had been unfortunate,” said Miss Mackenzie, in an apologetic tone.

”And what will you do about your loan?” said Mr Slow, looking over to John Ball when he asked the question, as though inquiring whether all Miss Mackenzie's affairs were to be talked over openly in the presence of that gentleman.

”That was a gift,” said Miss Mackenzie.

”A deed of gift,” thought John Ball to himself. ”A deed of gift!”

”Oh, indeed! Then there's an end of that, I suppose,” said Mr Slow.

”Exactly so. I have been explaining to my cousin all about it. I hope the firm will be able to pay my sister-in-law the interest on it, but that does not seem sure.”

”I am afraid I cannot help you there, Miss Mackenzie.”

”Of course not. I was not thinking of it. But what I've come about is this.” Then she told Mr Slow the whole of her project with reference to her fortune; how, on his death-bed, she had promised to give half of all that she had to her brother's wife and family, and how she had come there to him, with her cousin, in order that he might put her in the way of keeping her promise.