“Madam, I assure you,” Mr. Jellicorse replied, “that no one point has been neglected. And truly I am bold enough—though you may not perceive it—to take a little credit to myself for the skill and activity of my proceedings. I have a most conceited man against me; no member at all of our honored profession; but rather inclined to make light of us. A gentleman—if one may so describe him—of the name of Mordacks, who lives in a den below a bridge in York, and has very long harassed the law by a sort of cheap-jack, slap-dash, low-minded style of doing things. 'Jobbing,' I may call it—cheap and nasty jobbing—not at all the proper thing, from a correct point of view. 'A catch-penny fellow,' that's the proper name for him—I was trying to think of it half the way from Middleton.”
“And now, in your eloquence, you have hit upon it. I can easily understand that such a style of business would not meet with your approbation. But, Mr. Jellicorse, he seems to me to have proved himself considerably more active in his way—however objectionable that may be—than you, as our agent, have shown yourself.”
The cheerful, expressive, and innocent face of Mr. Jellicorse protested now. By nature he was almost as honest as Geoffrey Mordacks himself could be; and in spite of a very long professional career, the original element was there, and must be charged for.
“I can not recall to my memory,” he said, “any instance of neglect on my part. But if that impression is upon your mind, it would be better for you to change your legal advisers at an early opportunity. Such has been the frequent practice, madam, of your family. And but for that, none of this trouble could exist. I must beg you either to withdraw the charge of negligence, which I understand you to have brought, or else to appoint some gentleman of greater activity to conduct your business.”
With the haughtiness of her headstrong race, Miss Yordas had failed as yet to comprehend that a lawyer could be a gentleman. And even now that idea scarcely broke upon her, until she looked hard at Mr. Jellicorse. But he, having cast aside all deference for the moment, met her stern gaze with such courteous indifference and poise of self-composure that she suddenly remembered that his grandfather had been the master of a pack of fox-hounds.
“I have made no charge of negligence; you are hasty, and misunderstand me,” she answered, after waiting for him to begin again, as if he were a rash aggressor. “It is possible that you desire to abandon our case, and conceive affront where none is meant whatever.”
“God forbid!” Mr. Jellicorse exclaimed, with his legal state of mind returning. “A finer case never came into any court of law. There is a coarse axiom, not without some truth, that possession is nine points of the law. We have possession. What is even more important, we have the hostile instrument in our possession.”
“You mean that unfortunate and unjust deed, of a by-gone time, that was so wickedly concealed? Dishonest transaction from first to last!”
“Madam, the law is not to blame for that, nor even the lawyers; but the clients, who kept changing them. But for that, your admirable father must have known that the will he dictated to me was waste paper. At least as regards the main part of these demesnes.”
“What monstrous injustice! A positive premium upon filial depravity. You regard things professionally, I suppose. But surely it must have struck you as a flagrant dishonesty, a base and wicked crime, that a document so vile should be allowed even to exist.”