“I’ll write to Wimpenny at once,” he said, “but I mustn’t seem too hot for a settlement or he’ll hold out for all he knows. I shall begrudge him every penny that goes from your pocket to his. Well, good day. I wish I were a manufacturer, I’d turn world-mender too.”
“Oh! If you shew the world the example of one lawyer who has an idea beyond his bill of costs, you’ll have done your share,” laughed Tom. “Convert nine others and Huddersfield need not fear the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Pinder had more trouble with Ben Garside and his colleagues than he had encountered from his solicitor. Ben was for a fight to the finish. “Tinker’s shewing th’ blue feather,” he opined. “What’s come ovver thee, Tom? Tha’rt nooan bahn to duff when things are lookin’ up a bit? Besides, th’ best terms we can mak ’ll be to pay us own ’torney an’ gi’ up Co-op Mill. We med as weel be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and if we’re to be ruined we med as well be ruined gradely as hauf ruined. Aw reckon th’ bailies ’ll be bun to leeave us a bed to lig on, an we’st scrat along some rooad till they put th’ coffin lid ovver us. Aw say feight to th’ deeath. Talk abaat bowin’ th’ knee to Baal?”
“Baal!” quoth Hannah curtly. “Baal wer’ a respectable sort compared wi Jabez Tinker; an’ as for that Wimpenny, oh! If aw wer’ a man, wouldn’t aw just. That’s all.”
What “just” the irate dame would have done, words failed her to express, but judging from Hannah’s gestures it was something that would not have improved Nehemiah’s personal appearance.
But the negotiations with that gentleman which Mr. Sykes opened up did not promise to bear immediate fruit. It is possible that Mr. Wimpenny saw everything to be gained and nothing to be lost—by himself—in the sweetness long drawn out of proceedings in Chancery. The defendant’s overtures were not met in a conciliatory spirit, and Sykes advised that nothing further should be attempted in that direction. Tom felt that he could do no more, and when he told Dorothy the steps he had taken to fulfil the promise she had wrung from him, Dorothy expressed herself content.
“You can hold out till May 21st?” She only asked.
“Oh, dear me, yes. From what I can judge when a lawyer in a Chancery suit contemplates a move in the proceedings, he takes a month to think it over, then he takes counsel’s opinion, then he takes another month to think over counsel’s opinion, then he rests for a month to recuperate his energies after their unwonted strain, then he writes to his London agent indicating the step he wishes to be taken, the agent takes a month to think over his principal’s letter, and another month to reply to it, and at the end of all the country solicitor changes his mind, and the process circumbendibus begins de novo.”
“You ought to have been a lawyer, Tom,” commented Lucy. “You have been thinking over a certain step to my knowledge for more than twelve months, and you haven’t taken it yet.”
“And what’s that, Lucy?” asked Dorothy.