"And you mean to carry it on to action?"
"I must do it. They are my positive instructions."
Squire Carr turned off in desperation, nearly upsetting Mr. Kenneth as he stamped through the outer office. As fast as he could, he stamped up to the railway station, and took the first train to Eckford, arriving at the office of Mynn and Mynn in a white heat.
Mynn and Mynn themselves were nearly myths, so far as their clients could get hold of them. Old Mynn had the gout perpetually; and the younger brother, George Mynn, had a chronic sort of asthma, and could not speak to people half his time. What business was absolutely necessary for a principal to do, George Mynn mostly did it. He made the journeys to London, he attended the sessions and assizes at Westerbury; but it very often happened that, when a client called at the office, neither would be there.
As it was, on this day. A young man of the name of Richards was head of the office just now, for the managing clerk had died, and Mynn and Mynn were looking out for another. A sharp, clever, unscrupulous man was this Richards, who, if he proved as clever when he got into practice for himself, would stand a fair chance of getting out of it again. He was alone when Squire Carr entered, and leaned over his desk to shake hands with him. He was a great friend of Valentine Carr's, and sometimes dined at the squire's on Sundays—a thin, weaselly sort of man, not unlike Valentine himself, with a cast in one eye.
"Mr. George Mynn here to-day?"
"He is here to-day, squire; but he is not in just now. He's gone to Westerbury."
"I want to see him; I must see him," cried the squire, wiping his hot brows. "The most infamous thing has happened, Richards, that you ever heard of. They are going to try and wrest my Uncle Marmaduke's property from me."
"Who is?" asked Richards, in wonder.
"The son of that Robert Carr who went off with Martha Ann Hughes. It was before your time; but perhaps you have heard of it. There are children; and one of them has been down here, and has given Fauntleroy instructions to proceed against me and force me to give up the property."