“By all means. Pray take a chair.”
He took a chair, and was then seized by the doubt of which we have spoken. Perhaps the cause was the commanding position of his cousin, standing over him six foot three in height, and with a face like that of a Judge not personally interested in the case before him.
“The point is this: I’ve got a bill against your family, and I want to know whether I am to present it to you or to my great-grandfather?”
“A bill? Of what nature?”
“A bill for maintenance. We have maintained my grandmother for fifty years. She has been kept partly by my grandfather, partly by my family, and partly by myself, and it’s time that your family should do their duty.”
“That is a very remarkable claim.”
“Putting it at £50 a year, which is cheap for the lavish way she’s been kept, that makes £2,500. At compound interest it mounts up to £18,000 and odd. I shall be contented to square the claim for £18,000.”
“You propose to send in a bill—a bill for keeping your own grandmother?”
“That is just what I am going to do.”
“You must surely be aware that such a claim would not be entertained for a moment. No Court of Law would so much as look at it.”