A LEGAL DOCUMENT.
"There is," I said, "a guilty look about you. You are hanging round. At this time of the morning you have usually retreated to your fastnesses. Why has not the telephone claimed you? There is something on your mind."
"No," said the lady of the house airily; "I have a vacant mind."
"Where, then," I said, "is your loud laugh? I have not heard you shout 'Ha-ha,' or anything remotely resembling 'Ha-ha.' Something is weighing upon you."
"Not at all."
"Yes at all," I said decisively. "You have something to confess."
"Confess!" she said scornfully. "What nonsense is this about confession? We are not early-Victorians."
"Yes, we are. I insist upon it. I shall be busy with my writing. You will come and kneel unperceived at my feet with an imploring look upon your tear-stained face. I shall give a sudden start——"
"And," she went on enthusiastically, "I shall stretch out my hands to you, and you will raise me tenderly from the floor, and I shall then explain——"
"That appearances were against you, but that Eugene is really your brother by a first marriage——"
"And I shall then call for the smelling salts and swoon like this"—she collapsed in an inanimate heap on the sofa—"and you will rise to your full height——"
"Yes," I said, "I shall forgive you freely."
"No," she said, "you will blame yourself for not having appreciated my angelic nature, for having treated me as a mere toy, for having——"
"Yes," I said," for having married you at all. But I shall forgive you all the same, and I shall present you with the locket containing my grandmother's miniature. Come on; let us start at once. I forgive you from the bottom of my heart."
"All right," she said, "I accept your forgiveness. And now that we've cleared the ground, you'll perhaps allow me——"
"Aha," I said, "then there is something after all?"
"There always is something," she said, "so perhaps you'll allow me to ask you a question?"
"A question?" I said. "Ask me fifty. I don't promise to answer them. I'm only human, you know, but——"
"Surely," she said, "this humility is exaggerated."
"Anyhow," I said, "I'll do my best, so fire away."
"What," she said, "does one do with a legal document?"
"Isn't this rather sudden?" I said. "'What does one do with a legal document?' My dear, one does a thousand things. One buys land, or sells it—which is much better. One gets separated, or, rather, two get separated; one gets a legacy, generally quite inadequate; one executes a mortgage, but you mustn't ask me who is the mortgagor and who is the mortgagee, for, upon my sacred word of honour, I never can remember which is which or who does what. One leaves one's money to one's beloved wife by a legal document, or one cuts her off with a shilling and one's second best bed, like Shakspeare, you know. Really, there's nothing you can't do with a legal document."
"How on earth," she said admiringly, "did you get to know all these things?"
"Oh, I don't know," I said. "One learns as one goes along. Men have to know more or less about the law."
"Tell me," she said; "do you feel paralysed when you see a legal document?"
"No, not now. They used to make me tremble, but I'm up to them now. I understand their jargon."
"And frankly," she said, "I don't."
"But that doesn't matter," I said. "You've got a man——"
"Lucky me," she said.
"You've got a man to help you. That's what he's there for—to help you with legal documents and to have his work interrupted and all his ideas scattered. But, bless you, he doesn't mind. He knows his place."
"Well," she said, "it's this way. A very dear friend of mine has taken a house at the seaside, and they've sent her a document."
"A letting agreement," I said.
"I suppose so," she said; "and they want her to sign it; and they say something about a counterpart which somebody else is to sign."
"That," I said, "is the usual way."
"What I want to know is, ought she to sign her document?"
"Is it the sort of house she wants?"
"The very house," she said. "She's been over it. Lots of rooms; nice garden with tennis-lawn; splendid view of the sea; drainage in perfect order; weekly rent a mere nothing. There's to be an inventory."
"Of course there is. It's always done. Does the document embody everything she requires?"
"Yes," she said, "everything; and they've thrown in two extra days for nothing."
"In that case," I said, "her duty is clear. She must sign it."
"Do you advise that?"
"I do," I said, "most strongly."
"Thank you so much," she said, "I'll do it at once," and before I could interfere she had sat down at the writing-table, produced a document, unfolded it and signed it.
"It is," she explained, "the agreement for letting Sandstone House, Sandy Bay. They made it out in my name."
"But this," I said, seizing the paper, "is madness. It is not worth the paper on which it is written."
"I did nothing," she said, "without your advice."
"I shall repudiate it," I said, "as having been obtained by fraud."
"Right-o," she said; "we leave for Sandy Bay on July 28th."
R. C. L.