“Your uncle,” said Lucy very gravely, “has served a Bill in Chancery, I think they call it, on Tom.”
“What in the name of common sense is a Bill in Chancery? I know what a dressmaker’s bill is, but the other variety is beyond me.”
“I don’t quite know all the ins and outs of it,” replied Lucy, still very seriously. “But so far as I can make out your uncle complains that Tom fouls the stream and takes more water out than he’s any right to, and of course as Wilberlee is lower down the stream it must injure your uncle if it’s true.”
“And is it true?” asked Dorothy.
“Both Tom and father say there isn’t a word of truth in it.”
“And you believe them?”
“Of course I do,” said Lucy simply.
“Then what is there to look so gloomy about? ’Pon my word, Lucy, if you go on in the dumps like that I’ll shake you. I only wish somebody would bring a false charge against me. There’s nothing I should enjoy more than making them prove their words at no end of trouble and expense, and then laughing at the faces they’d pull when they failed to do it. If that’s Chancery I call Chancery a very good joke.”
“Aye, but Tom says it will take all they have in the world to prove that they’re in the right, and that month after month, for goodness knows how long, the money that should go for wages and in carrying on the mill must go to their lawyer. So it means ruin, win or lose.”
“And that’s what they call law, is it?” exclaimed Dorothy. “Anybody could see a set of men noodles made it. But what are they going to do?”