“Oh, Jessop, Jessop,” sighed Janet, as she shrank from the lawyer’s arms, and then hurriedly turned her head away as she met Clive’s searching eyes.
“But I tell you, you haven’t a leg to stand on, man.”
“Then, curse it!” cried Jessop, “I’ll fight on crutches. It’s a false will, got out of the old man when he was imbecile. He would never have invented it himself.”
“What!” cried the Doctor warmly; and Janet burst into tears.
“I say it’s all a made-up, blackguardly concoction, schemed by my smug, smooth brother, who has always been fighting against me. Miner—underminer he ought to be called. But it shan’t stand. I’ll throw the whole thing into Chancery, and fight it year after year till there isn’t a penny left.”
“And you have been shut up in a lunatic asylum, and the best place for you,” said the Doctor angrily.
“Oh, now you’ve begun,” cried Jessop, with quite a snarl. “You think your child’s going to have a hundred thousand, do you, and that you will be able to have your coin all to yourself.”
“Jessop,” began Clive excitedly.
“No, no, my dear boy,” said the lawyer, “there must be no brotherly quarrel. It is so unseemly at a time like this. Let me try and settle it.”
“What, make terms?” cried Jessop. “No; those are for me to make, for I’ve got the whip hand of you, and you shall beg to me if all the old man’s cursed money is not to go to the lawyers. Now, then, what have you to say?”