"So you have got Gazebee down there now? Gumption, Gazebee & Gazebee: very good people, I'm sure; only, perhaps, they have a little too much on hand to do your father justice."
"But about Sir Louis, Mr Bideawhile."
"Well, about Sir Louis; a very bad sort of fellow, isn't he? Drinks—eh? I knew his father a little. He was a rough diamond, too. I was once down in Northamptonshire, about some railway business; let me see; I almost forget whether I was with him, or against him. But I know he made sixty thousand pounds by one hour's work; sixty thousand pounds! And then he got so mad with drinking that we all thought—"
And so Mr Bideawhile went on for two hours, and Frank found no opportunity of saying one word about the business which had brought him up to town. What wonder that such a man as this should be obliged to stay at his office every night till nine o'clock?
During these two hours, a clerk had come in three or four times, whispering something to the lawyer, who, on the last of such occasions, turned to Frank, saying, "Well, perhaps that will do for to-day. If you'll manage to call to-morrow, say about two, I will have the whole thing looked up; or, perhaps Wednesday or Thursday would suit you better." Frank, declaring that the morrow would suit him very well, took his departure, wondering much at the manner in which business was done at the house of Messrs Slow & Bideawhile.
When he called the next day, the office seemed to be rather disturbed, and he was shown quickly into Mr Bideawhile's room. "Have you heard this?" said that gentleman, putting a telegram into his hands. It contained tidings of the death of Sir Louis Scatcherd. Frank immediately knew that these tidings must be of importance to his father; but he had no idea how vitally they concerned his own more immediate interests.
"Dr Thorne will be up in town on Thursday evening after the funeral," said the talkative clerk. "And nothing of course can be done till he comes," said Mr Bideawhile. And so Frank, pondering on the mutability of human affairs, again took his departure.
He could do nothing now but wait for Dr Thorne's arrival, and so he amused himself in the interval by running down to Malvern, and treating with Miss Dunstable in person for the oil of Lebanon. He went down on the Wednesday, and thus, failed to receive, on the Thursday morning, Mary's letter, which reached London on that day. He returned, however, on the Friday, and then got it; and perhaps it was well for Mary's happiness that he had seen Miss Dunstable in the interval. "I don't care what your mother says," said she, with emphasis. "I don't care for any Harry, whether it be Harry Baker, or old Harry himself. You made her a promise, and you are bound to keep it; if not on one day, then on another. What! because you cannot draw back yourself, get out of it by inducing her to do so! Aunt de Courcy herself could not improve upon that." Fortified in this manner, he returned to town on the Friday morning, and then got Mary's letter. Frank also got a note from Dr Thorne, stating that he had taken up his temporary domicile at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house, so as to be near the lawyers.
It has been suggested that the modern English writers of fiction should among them keep a barrister, in order that they may be set right on such legal points as will arise in their little narratives, and thus avoid that exposure of their own ignorance of the laws, which, now, alas! they too often make. The idea is worthy of consideration, and I can only say, that if such an arrangement can be made, and if a counsellor adequately skilful can be found to accept the office, I shall be happy to subscribe my quota; it would be but a modest tribute towards the cost.
But as the suggestion has not yet been carried out, and as there is at present no learned gentleman whose duty would induce him to set me right, I can only plead for mercy if I be wrong allotting all Sir Roger's vast possessions in perpetuity to Miss Thorne, alleging also, in excuse, that the course of my narrative absolutely demands that she shall be ultimately recognised as Sir Roger's undoubted heiress.