SIR HOWARD. No doubt, by paying him enough to compensate him for giving up his London practice: that is, rather more than there was any reasonable likelihood of the estate proving worth.
RANKIN. Then the estate was lost?
SIR HOWARD. Not permanently. It is in my hands at present.
RANKIN. Then how did ye get it back?
SIR HOWARD (with crafty enjoyment of his own cunning). By hoisting the rogue with his own petard. I had to leave matters as they were for many years; for I had my own position in the world to make. But at last I made it. In the course of a holiday trip to the West Indies, I found that this dishonest agent had left the island, and placed the estate in the hands of an agent of his own, whom he was foolish enough to pay very badly. I put the case before that agent; and he decided to treat the estate as my property. The robber now found himself in exactly the same position he had formerly forced me into. Nobody in the island would act against me, least of all the Attorney and Solicitor General, who appreciated my influence at the Colonial Office. And so I got the estate back. "The mills of the gods grind slowly," Mr. Rankin; "but they grind exceeding small."
LADY CICELY. Now I suppose if I'd done such a clever thing in England, you'd have sent me to prison.
SIR HOWARD. Probably, unless you had taken care to keep outside the law against conspiracy. Whenever you wish to do anything against the law, Cicely, always consult a good solicitor first.
LADY CICELY. So I do. But suppose your agent takes it into his head to give the estate back to his wicked old employer!
SIR HOWARD. I heartily wish he would.
RANKIN (openeyed). You wish he WOULD!!