Jacqueline laughed. "At least, it doesn't matter much.—Is that all, Joab?"
"An' Marse Ludwell Cary, he ride erroun in de rain an' leave he compliments for Marse Lewis, an' he say will Miss Jacqueline 'cept dese yer flowers—"
"One remembered," said Rand, and watched his wife put the flowers in water.
CHAPTER XIV
THE LAW OFFICE
"If you were not so damned particular—" said the weasel disconsolately.
"I'm not damned particular," answered Rand. "I've wanted wealth and I've wanted power ever since I went barefoot and suckered tobacco—as you know who know me better than almost any one else! But this"—he tapped the papers on the table before him—"this is cheating."
"Oh, you!" complained the scamp. "You are of the elect. What you want you'll take by main force. You are a strong man! You've taken a deal since that day we went into the bookshop by the bridge. But I'm no Samson or David—I'm just Tom Mocket—and still, why shouldn't I have my pennyworth?"
Rand paused in his walking up and down the office in Main Street. It was the late winter, a year and more from that evening when he and Jacqueline had first come to the house on Shockoe Hill. Standing by the rough deal table, he laid an authoritative hand upon the documents with which it was strewn. "You'll never get your pennyworth here. The scheme these gentry have afoot is just a Yazoo business. If these lands exist, they're only a hunting-ground of swamp, Indians, and buffalo. The survey is paper, the cleared fields a fable, the town Manoa, the scheme a bubble, the purchasers fools, and the sellers knaves,—and there's your legal opinion in a nutshell!"