"Then all the money that's been spent this ten or twelve years has been my money, has it?"
"If we are right, it is undoubtedly as you say," answered Mr. Quirk, giving a quick apprehensive glance at Mr. Gammon.
"Then there'll be a jolly reckoning for some one, shortly—eh? My stars!"
"My dear Mr. Titmouse," said Mr. Gammon, gravely, "you have no more than a just regard for your own interests. There will be a reckoning, and a very terrible one ere long, for somebody—but we've a vast deal to go through, and a vast deal of money to be spent, before we come to discuss that matter! Only let us have the unspeakable happiness of seeing you once fairly in possession of your estates, and our office shall know no rest till you have got all you may be entitled to—even to the uttermost farthing!"
"Oh, never fear our letting them rest!" said Mr. Quirk, judiciously accommodating himself to the taste and apprehension of his excited auditor—"Those that must give up the goose, must give up the giblets also—ha, ha, ha!" Messrs. Gammon and Snap echoed the laugh, duly tickled with the joke of the head of the firm.
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Titmouse, immensely excited by the conjoint influence of the brandy, and the news of the night; "capital! capital! hurrah! Such goings on there will be! You're all of the right sort, gents, I see! 'Pon my life, law for ever! There's nothing like it! Let's all shake hands, gents! Come, if you please, all together! all friends to-night!" And the little fellow grasped each of the three readily-proffered right hands of Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, with an energy that was likely to make all the high contracting parties to that quadruple alliance, remember its ratification.
"And is it all a ready-money affair, gents?—or rent, and all that kind of thing?" he inquired, after many eloquent expressions of delight.
"Why, almost entirely the latter," answered Mr. Quirk, "except the accumulations."
"Then, 'pon my soul—I'm a great landlord, am I?"
"Indeed, my dear Mr. Titmouse, you are—(that is, unless we have made a blunder such as—I will say—our house is not often in the habit of making)—and have two very fine houses, one in town and the other in the country."