“Nice things here, Mossop,” Josiah pointed to the flower beds on either side. “That a Charlotte Fanning?” A finger indicated a glorious white rose whose dazzling purity of color stood out beyond all the rest.
Mr. Mossop said it was a Charlotte Fanning.
“Not sure you are going to beat mine, though.”
Mr. Mossop said modestly that he did not expect to do that. Mr. Munt had long been famous for his roses; and by comparison the lawyer declared he was but a novice. The client was flattered considerably by the compliment.
At the gate, the proprietor of the Duke of Wellington pointed to the distant gables of Strathfieldsaye, and said, “Well, come round when you get back. The garden won’t be much of a show for twelve months yet, but the house is first class. I designed it myself.”
With the winning charm which even Josiah, who felt that he paid for it on the High Court scale could not resist, Mr. Mossop promised that he would come round when he got back.
“An’ don’t forget the wife and daughter.”
The wife and daughter should come round too. And then as the lord of Strathfieldsaye said, “Good-night, Mossop,” and was about to turn away from the open gate, he felt suddenly the hand of the solicitor upon his shoulder and the impact of a pair of grave, kind eyes. “I wish, my dear friend,” said Lawyer Mossop, “you could see your way to taking a fortnight to think over that little matter.”
It was not mere conventional man-of-the-worldly good feeling. It was the human father, and the sheer unexpectedness of the obtrusion through the highly polished surface of the city’s foremost solicitor caused his client to take a sharp breath. But Josiah’s strength had always been that he knew his own mind. And he knew it now. “No, Mossop.” A final shake of the dour head. “That gel is comin’ out of my will. Good-night.”
The solicitor sighed gently and closed the gate. And then he stood a moment to watch the slow-receding lurch of the elephantine figure up the road.