After supper fresh logs were heaped on the fire, and the lawyer sat in a cosy arm-chair, and took out his diary, and several papers, as methodically as if he was going to lay the case by counsel before a judge of assize.
Kate sat opposite him with her grey eyes beaming on him all the time, and searching for the hidden meaning of everything he told her. During the recital which follows, her color often came and went, but those wonderful eyes never left the narrator's face a moment.
They put the attorney on his mettle, and he elaborated the matter more than I should have done: he articulated his topics; marked each salient fact by a long pause. In short he told his story like an attorney, and not like a Romancist. I cannot help that, you know; I'm not Procrustes.
Mr. Houseman's Little Narrative
"Wednesday, the seventeenth day of February, at about one of the clock, called on me at my place of business Mr. Griffith Gaunt, whom I need not hero describe, inasmuch as his person and place of residence are well known to the court—what am I saying?—I mean, well known to yourself, Mistress Kate.
"The said Griffith, on entering my room seemed moved, and I might say, distempered; and did not give himself time to salute me and receive my obeisance, but addressed me abruptly and said as follows: 'Mr. Houseman, I am come to make my will.'"
"Dear me!" said Kate: then blushed, and was more on her guard.
"I seated the young gentleman, and then replied that his resolution aforesaid did him credit, the young being as mortal as the old. I said further that many disasters had happened, in my experience, owing to the obstinacy with which men in the days of their strength shut their eyes to the precarious tenure, under which all sons of Adam hold existence; and so many a worthy gentleman dies in his sins. And, what is worse, dies intestate.
"But the said Griffith interrupted me with some signs of impatience, and asked me bluntly would I draw his will, and have it executed on the spot.
"I assented, generally; but I requested him by way of needful preliminary, to obtain for me a copy of Mr. Charlton's will, under which, as I have always understood, the said Griffith inherits whatever real estate he hath to bequeath.