There he remained for full an hour, a message in the meanwhile having been sent out to Herbert Fitzgerald, begging him not to leave the chambers till he should have seen Mr. Die; "and your friend Mr. Prendergast is with him," said the clerk. "A very nice gentleman is Mr. Prendergast, uncommon clever too; but it seems to me that he never can hold his own when he comes across our Mr. Die."
At the end of the hour Herbert was summoned into the sanctum, and there he found Mr. Die sitting in his accustomed chair, with his body much bent, nursing the calf of his leg, which was always enveloped in a black, well-fitting close pantaloon, and smiling very blandly. Mr. Prendergast had in his countenance not quite so sweet an aspect. Mr. Die had repeated to him, perhaps once too often, a very well-known motto of his; one by the aid of which he professed to have steered himself safely through the shoals of life—himself and perhaps some others. It was a motto which he would have loved to see inscribed over the great gates of the noble inn to which he belonged; and which, indeed, a few years since might have been inscribed there with much justice. "Festinâ lentè," Mr. Die would say to all those who came to him in any sort of hurry. And then when men accused him of being dilatory by premeditation, he would say no, he had always recommended despatch. "Festinâ," he would say; "festinâ" by all means; but "festinâ lentè." The doctrine had at any rate thriven with the teacher, for Mr. Die had amassed a large fortune.
Herbert at once saw that Mr. Prendergast was a little fluttered. Judging from what he had seen of the lawyer in Ireland, he would have said that it was impossible to flutter Mr. Prendergast; but in truth greatness is great only till it encounters greater greatness. Mars and Apollo are terrible and magnificent gods till one is enabled to see them seated at the foot of Jove's great throne. That Apollo, Mr. Prendergast, though greatly in favour with the old Chancery Jupiter, had now been reminded that he had also on this occasion driven his team too fast, and been nearly as indiscreet in his own rash offering.
"We are very sorry to keep you waiting here, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Mr. Die, giving his hand to the young man without, however, rising from his chair; "especially sorry, seeing that it is your first day in harness. But your friend Mr. Prendergast thinks it as well that we should talk over together a piece of business which does not seem as yet to be quite settled."
Herbert of course declared that he had been in no hurry to go away; he was, he said, quite ready to talk over anything; but to his mind at that moment nothing occurred more momentous than the nature of the agreement between himself and Mr. Die. There was an honorarium which it was presumed Mr. Die would expect, and which Herbert Fitzgerald had ready for the occasion.
"I hardly know how to describe what has taken place this morning since I saw you," said Mr. Prendergast, whose features told plainly that something more important than the honorarium was now on the tapis.
"What has taken place?" said Herbert, whose mind now flew off to Castle Richmond.
"Gently, gently," said Mr. Die; "in the whole course of my legal experience,—and that now has been a very long experience,—I have never come across so,—so singular a family history as this of yours, Mr. Fitzgerald. When our friend Mr. Prendergast here, on his return from Ireland, first told me the whole of it, I was inclined to think that he had formed a right and just decision—"
"There can be no doubt about that," said Herbert.
"Stop a moment, my dear sir; wait half a moment—a just decision, I say—regarding the evidence of the facts as conclusive. But I was not quite so certain that he might not have been a little—premature perhaps may be too strong a word—a little too assured in taking those facts as proved."