‘Then don’t tell me a pack of lies!’ roared the client with an instantaneous change of manner, facing round from the fireplace, poker in hand, with every apparent intention of committing a violent assault upon his solicitor. ‘Man alive! don’t I know that it’s just as much as you can do to keep body and soul together in that poky little hole of an office of yours?—Business, indeed! As if I wasn’t about the only decent client you have! And why I am your client, goodness only knows. It’s compassion, I suppose. I always was too soft-hearted for this world.’
His visitor could have furnished him with a better reason—namely, that no other lawyer had ever been found capable of putting up with his insolence and tyranny. But Mr Blackford had plenty of self-control, and could bear a good deal where anything was to be got by doing so.
The soft-hearted gentleman smote the coals violently, fulminating subdued anathemas the while with a dreadful grin. The solicitor, knowing his man, remained perfectly quiet; and presently Mr Franklin spoke again, abruptly, but in a quieter tone.
‘Here! I want to make my will. I’m going to do it at last—in a fashion that will astonish some of ’em. They’ve been anxious enough about it these ten years and more. I hope it’ll please ’em when it’s done. A set of hungry hounds! Ready to lick the dirt off my boots for the money, and nothing too bad to say of me behind my back. I know it as well as if I heard it. Not a penny—not a penny for one of ’em! I’d rather take it into my grave with me—not but what they’d grub me up again, if I was in the middle of the earth.’
There was again a short silence. Mr Blackford awaited his instructions.
‘Then there’s this young Tom Wedlake been giving me his sauce, just because I spoke a word to that lazy young baggage of a wife of his—said he wasn’t going to stand it—he wasn’t going to stand it—the beggar! and if I didn’t like it, I could go. Will I! I’ll stay here, just to spite him. Besides, I’m a deal too comfortable to move. She won’t let him turn me out—the artful minx. “Dear uncle—don’t be cross with me, dear uncle!”’ said Mr Franklin with an access of fury, and a ludicrous assumption of a feminine falsetto. “Leave all your money to your niece, dear uncle; that’s what you’ve got to do.” Not a brass farthing, by Jove! He doesn’t want my money, doesn’t he? and he has the impudence to tell me so! Very good, Mr Thomas Wedlake; I’ll take you at your word. I’ll pay you out, you—you—rapscallion!’
The furious monologue seemed to have spun itself out; so Mr Blackford ventured a word.
‘Then I gather, sir, that you do not intend to leave any portion of your property to your nephew and niece—and I have no doubt you are exercising a sound discretion, as always. But as you are justly offended with your other relations, what disposition do you think of making?’
‘Mind your own business!’ was the unexpected retort.
Mr Blackford felt rather aggrieved, as the matter was clearly his business; but he said nothing. The old man continued his jerky discourse, addressed more to himself than to his visitor.