With Peter Weaver I prepared to arrange my affairs as best I might, it being impossible for me to undertake a voyage to Ireland at this time, though my succession to the title and estates of my late uncle, Sir Terence, made it most necessary.
For the first time in my life I now became passably acquainted with my own affairs, though when we came to figure in pounds, shillings, and pence, I yawned, yet made pretence of a wisdom in mathematics which, God knows, is not in me.
Silver Heels, her round chin on my shoulder, listened attentively, and asked some questions which caused the ponderous lawyer to address himself to her rather than to me, seeing clearly that either I cared nothing for my own affairs or else was stupid past all belief.
Sir William's legacies to me and to Silver Heels were discussed most seriously; and Mr. Weaver would have it that the law should deal with my miserable kinsman, Sir John, for the fraud he had wrought. Yet, it was exactly that; and, because he was my kinsman, I could not drag him out to cringe for his infamy before the rabble.
The land and the money left to us by Sir William we would now, doubtless, receive, but it was only because Sir William had desired it that we at length made up our minds to accept it at all.
This I made plain to Mr. Weaver, then relapsed into a dull inspection of his horn spectacles as he discoursed of mortgages and bonds and interests and liens with stupefying monotony.
"It is like the school-room, Micky," murmured Silver Heels, close to my ear, and composed her countenance to listen to a fluent peroration on percentage and investments in terms which were to me as vain as tinkling cymbals.
"Then I am wealthy?" I interposed, again and again, yet could draw from that fat badger, Weaver, neither a "yes" nor "no," nor any plain speech fit for a gentleman's comprehension.
So when at length we quitted Mr. Weaver a sullen mood possessed me and I felt at bay with all the learned people in the world, as I had often felt, penned in the school-room.
"Am I?" I asked Silver Heels.