“Tenth of January 17—,” said Septimus.
“Very good, sir; but then, that’s only what you say, mind, and a bare word’s not worth much in a court of law when a case is being tried. ‘’Tis,’ says you. ‘’Tisn’t,’ says your uncle, who’s rich, and prosperous, and respectable, and has the money, and lives in a big house, with plenty of well-to-do friends round him. ‘Prove your case,’ says the judge to you; and mind you, sir, this is the ticklish point; it ain’t a question of who’s to have your father’s money. He’s got it, and it’s a question of your turning him out. So, ‘Prove your case,’ says the judge. ‘You’ve left this man in possession for a year, and now you say he does not hold the property lawfully. Prove your case.’ ‘Can’t my lord,’ says you—‘no documentary evidence.’ And now do you know what the judge would say?”
Septimus shook his head dismally.
“‘Judgment for the defendant’—that’s your uncle, you know.” And then, as if highly satisfied with his logical mode of putting the case. Matt snapped his fingers loudly after a large pinch of snuff.
“But,” said Mrs Septimus, “my doctor told me that he always kept a register of all the births he attended.”
Mrs Septimus said no more, for old Matt’s fist went down upon the table with a bang that made some of the ink leap from the stand, but fortunately not upon Septimus Hardon’s clean sheets of paper.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am!” cried Matt, hurriedly sopping up the ink with his wisp of a handkerchief; “but blame me if I don’t wish I’d been born a woman! trust them for getting to the bottom of everything. Why, Lord bless you, sir, there you are—there’s the case in a nutshell!—that’s the matter hit right in the bull’s-eye! Why didn’t you begin about it before? You’re right as a trivet. There’s the date of the marriage, and there’s the doctor’s book—such-and-such a day, such-and-such a time; medicine and attendance, two pound twelve shillings and sixpence. Hallo!” exclaimed Matt, scratching his head, “that comes very pat; where did I hear those words before? But there, look here, sir; I think we’ve got hold of the right end of the tangle, and here it is. You go down to Somesham and tell nunky how it stands. ‘Here we are,’ says you, ‘and now give up peaceable and quiet, and I’ll say nothing at all about what’s gone by.’ Of course he won’t, and begins to talk big about kicking out of the house, and all that sort of thing. ‘Two can play at that,’ says you; and as he won’t be civil, he must have it hot. Back you come; put it in a decent solicitor’s hands; with your good documentary evidence out he goes—in you go; and my di’mond has a pony with a long silky tail; Miss Lucy a carriage, and missis here an invalid chair, and old Matt to push it—eh, ma’am?”
“But about finding the doctor,” said Septimus sadly.
“Well, yes—true, to be sure,” said Matt, over a fresh pinch of snuff; “but I think we can manage that part, sir. Don’t you see, we can tell our road now we’ve got our line cut out; and we’ve only got it to do. There’s some pye in the case, of course, but we can correct as we go on, eh? There’s a doctors’ directory, and we can soon find him.”
“There’s a hitch directly,” said Septimus. “I don’t know his name.”