"Oh, no!"—replied Lynx, modestly. "It was a mere accident my lighting on it; the merit was, the use you made of it!"
"To think of ten thousand a-year turning on that same trumpery erasure!"——
"But are you sure of our verdict on that ground, Mr. Subtle? Do you think Lord Widdrington was right in rejecting that deed?"[1]
"Right? to be sure he was! But I own I got rather uneasy at the way the Attorney-General put it—that the estate had once been vested, and could not be subsequently de-vested by an alteration or blemish in the instrument evidencing the passing of the estate—eh? that was a good point, Lynx."
"Ay, but as Lord Widdrington put it—that could be only where the defect was proved to exist after a complete and valid deed had been once established."
"True—true; that's the answer, Lynx; here, you see, the deed is disgraced in the first instance; no proof, in fact, that it ever was a deed—therefore, mere waste paper."
"To be sure, possession has gone along with the deed"——
"Possession gone along with it!—What then?—That is to say, the man who has altered it, to benefit himself and his heirs, keeps it snugly in his own chest—and then that is of itself to be sufficient to"——
"Ay—but what I'm afraid of, is this: that the presumption of forgery arising from the alteration, is overcome by the presumption to the contrary, arising from long-continued and consistent possession!—On the other hand, however, it is certainly a general rule that the party producing an instrument must account for the appearance of erasure or alteration, to encounter the presumption of fraud!—I must say that seems good sense enough!"...
"It's really been a very interesting cause," said Mr. Subtle.