"Well?"
"Well, just because some swindler disputed his right, and a blackmailer presented a bogus account, and somebody else claimed on the estate, on the ground of a letter which was clearly a forgery, the lawyers went to work with glee, and the State judge or attorney, or whoever he may be, aided and abetted the plunder. A grosser piece of corruption there never was in this world."
"And they ate it all up between them?"
"Every dollar. At least, I presume so. It was postponed—I mean the settlement—and postponed month after month, and year after year; and taken to this court and that, the lawyers licking their lips all the time—What cared they for the widow and the fatherless? And when there was nothing left of the estate, why the litigation ceased."
"That's usually the case, isn't it?"
"But in our English courts there is a chance of an honest man coming by his rights."
"Not much if he should happen to be a poor man."
"Then you believe we are as bad as the Americans?"
"Every whit. Lawyers and law courts, all the world over mean the same thing."
"But isn't one of your best friends a lawyer?"