“Which is near akin to love,” muttered Frank. Then aloud—“All right, Dick. I could not help noticing it; but be careful. Little girls’ hearts are made of tender stuff—some of them,” he said, speaking ruefully—“when they are touched by fine, tall, good-looking fellows.”
“Pish!” ejaculated Richard. “Change the subject.”
“Going to,” said Pratt, filling his pipe afresh, and smoking once more furiously. “Better open that window, these pokey rooms so soon get full. That’s right. Now, then, for a change. Look here, old fellow, you know I’m going ahead now, actually refusing briefs. Do you hear, you unbelieving-looking dog?—refusing briefs, and only taking the best cases.”
“Bravo!” said Richard, trying to smile cheerily.
“I’m getting warm, Dick—making money. Q.C. some day, my boy—perhaps. But seriously, Dick, old fellow, I am going ahead at a rate that surprises no one more than yours truly. When I’d have given my ears for a good case, and would have studied it night and day, the beggars wouldn’t have given me one to save my life, even if I’d have done it for nothing. Now, when I’m so pressed that it’s hard work to get them up, they come and beg me to take briefs. This very morning, one came from a big firm of solicitors at ten o’clock, marked fifty guineas, and I refused it. At one o’clock, hang me if they didn’t come back with it, marked a hundred, and a fellow with it, hat in hand, ready, if I’d refused again, to offer me more.”
“Frank,” cried Richard, jumping up, and shaking his friend warmly by the hand, “no one is more delighted than I am.”
“Mind what you’re up to,” said Pratt, who had nearly been tilted off his perch by his friend’s energy. “But I say, it don’t seem like it.”
“Why?”
“Because you won’t share in it. Now, look here, Dick, old fellow, you must want money, and it’s too bad that you won’t take it.”
“I don’t want it, Frank—I don’t, indeed,” cried Richard, hastily. “Living as I do, I have enough and to spare. I tell you, I like the change.”