“Lorne, you’ve got it!” divined his mother instantly.
“Got what, Mother?”
“The case! I’ve suspected it from the minute the subject was mentioned! That case came in today!”
“And you sitting there like a bump on a log, and never telling us!” exclaimed Stella, with reproach.
“Stella, you have a great deal too much to say,” replied her brother. “Suppose you try sitting like a bump on a log. We won’t complain. Yes, the Squire seems to have made up his mind about the defence, and my seniors haven’t done much else today.”
“Rawlins saw him hitched up in front of your place for about two hours this morning,” said Mr Williams. “I told him I thought that was good enough, but we didn’t say anything, Rawlins having heard it was to be Flynn from Toronto. And I hadn’t forgotten the Grand Trunk case we put down to you last week without exactly askin’. Your old man was as mad as a hornet—wanted to stop his subscription; Rawlins had no end of a time to get round him. Little things like that will creep in when you’ve got to trust to one man to run the whole local show. But I didn’t want the Mercury to have another horse on us.”
“Do you think you’ll get a look in, Lorne?” asked Dr Harry.
“Oh, not a chance of it. The old man’s as keen as a razor on the case, and you’d think Warner never had one before! If I get a bit of grubbing to do, under supervision, they’ll consider I ought to be pleased.” It was the sunniest possible tone of grumbling; it enlisted your sympathy by its very acknowledgement that it had not a leg to stand on.
“They’re pretty wild about it out Moneida way,” said Dr Harry. “My father says the township would put down the bail three times over.”
“They swear by the Squire out there,” said Mr Horace Williams, liberally applying his napkin to his moustache. “He treated some of them more than square when the fall wheat failed three years running, about ten years back; do you remember, Mr Murchison? Lent them money at about half the bank rate, and wasn’t in an awful sweat about getting it in at that either.”