“A little of the practice went over to Paul when Tom left me. It was not much. Some of the clients, you see, had been accustomed to Tom at our place, and they followed him. That was a crafty move of John Paul’s—getting hold of Tom.”
“I am not alluding to the odds and ends of practice that left you then, Valentine. I speak chiefly of this last year. Hardly a week has passed in it but some client or other has left you for Paul.”
“If they have, I can’t help it,” was the careless reply. “How those girls squall!”
“I suppose there is no underhand influence at work, Valentine?” she said dubiously. “Tom Chandler does not hold out baits for your clients, and so fish them away from you?”
“Well, no, I suppose not,” repeated the young lawyer, draining his glass. “I accused Tom of it one day, and for once in his life he flew into a passion, asking me what I had ever seen in him to suspect he could be guilty of such a thing.”
“No. I fear it is as I have been given to understand, Valentine: that the cause lies with you. You spend your time in pleasure instead of being at business. When clients go to the office, three times out of every five they do not find you. You are not there. You are over at the Bell, playing at billiards, or drinking in the bar.”
“What an unfounded calumny!” exclaimed Valentine.
“I have been told,” continued Mrs. Chandler, sinking her voice, “that you are getting to drink frightfully. It is nothing for clients now to find you in a state incapable of attending to them.”
“Now, mother, I insist upon knowing who told you these lies,” spluttered Valentine, getting up and striding to the window. “Let anybody come forward and prove that he has found me incapable—if he can.”
“I heard that Sir John Whitney went in the other day and could make neither top nor tail of what you said,” continued his mother, disregarding his denial. “You are agent for the little bit of property he owns here: he chanced to come over from Whitney Hall, and found you like that.”