"To have done with the Chancery suit altogether."
"Impossible, my dear friend. It must go on—that is," added the lawyer, "until the whole estate itself is swallowed up—"
"In the sea? Well, that is what I said, isn't it?" John asked.
"Yes, in the sea, if you like; or the whirlpool of law, if you like it better. However, so the case stands; and sooner than give it up, I will carry it on at my own cost. What do you think? Since I saw you last, I have been hunting up that Saddlebrook doctor's will in Doctors' Commons; have compared signatures, end submitted both to an expert; and—and we shall carry the day after all."
"Well, then," said Tincroft, who seemed very little elated with the promise which had been so often repeated and disappointed, that it was like the "hope deferred" which "maketh the heart sick." "Well, then, there will be less difficulty in your making the advance I ask for. I really must have that twenty pounds."
But Mr. Roundhead had something else to say. "Every pound you spend now—pray consider, Mr. Tincroft, for I only speak in your own interests—every pound you spend now, unnecessarily I mean, will be so much deducted from what you will positively require for your outfit to India."
"But if the Chancery suit is so sure of being soon terminated in my favour, perhaps I shall not need to go to India after all," said John.
Mr. Roundhand shook his head doubtfully, as implying that the Tincroft estate might not, if obtained, hold out a sufficient inducement to alter his client's plans.
"At any rate, I question whether I shall not throw up the appointment," John added.
"You don't mean that, surely?" said the lawyer, who was himself surprised now.