Bumpkin still looked and blushed.
“Ah!” said Mr. Prigg; “just so. But who was this companion?”
Bumpkin muttered “A friend!”
“O! O! O!” said Mr. Prigg, drawing a long face and placing the fore-finger of his left hand perpendicularly from the tip of his nose to the top of his forehead.
“Noa,” said Bumpkin, “’taint none o’ that nuther; I beant a man o’ that sort.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Prigg, “I only thought I’d call, you know, in case there should be anything which might in any way affect our action.”
Mr. Bumpkin, conscious of his moral rectitude, like all good men, was fearless: he knew that nothing which he had done would affect the merits of his case, and, therefore, instead of replying to the subtle question of his adviser, he merely enquired of that gentleman when he thought the case would be on. The usual question.
Mr. Prigg rubbed his hands and glanced his eyes as though just under his left elbow was a very deep well, at the bottom of which lay that inestimable jewel, truth. “Really,” Mr. Bumpkin, “I expect every hour to see us in the paper. It’s very extraordinary; they have no less than three Courts sitting, as I daresay you are aware. No less than—let me see, my mind’s so full of business, I have seven cases ready to come on. Where was I? O, I know; I say there are no less than three Courts, under the continuous sittings system, and yet we seem to make no progress in the diminution of the tremendous and overwhelming mass of business that pours in upon us.”
Mr. Bumpkin said “Hem!”
“You see,” continued Mr. Prigg, “there’s one thing, we shall not last long when we do come on.”