Ten Thousand a-Year Volume I Part 10

"They shouldn't have given me so much brandy and water as they did; I didn't well know what I was about, what with the news and the spirits!"

"And you went into the street?" inquired Huckaback, with a kind of horror.

"I did, by Jove, Hucky!"

"They'd given you the sperrits to see what kind of chap you'd be if you got the property--only to try you, depend on it!"

"Lord! I--I dare say they did!" exclaimed t.i.tmouse, elevating his head with sudden amazement, totally forgetting that same brandy and water he had asked for--"and me never to think of it at the time."

"Now are you quite sure you wasn't in a _dream_ last night, all the while?"

"Oh, dear, I wish I had been--I do, indeed, Hucky!"

"Well--you went into the street--what then?" inquired Huckaback, with a sigh of exhausted attention.

"Why, when I'd got there, I could have bitten my tongue off, as one may suppose; but, just as I was a-turning to go in again, who should come up to me but Mr. Gammon, saying, he humbly hoped there was no offence."

"Oh, glorious! So it was all set right again, then--eh?"

"Why--I--I can't quite exactly say that much, either--but--when I went back, (being obligated by Mr. Gammon being so pressing,) the other two was sitting as pale as death; and though Mr. Gammon and me went on our knees to the old gent, it wasn't any use for a long time; and all that he could be got to say was, that perhaps I might look in again to-night--(but they first made me swear a solemn oath on the Bible never to tell any one anything about the fortune)--and then--you went, Huckaback, and you did the business; they of course concluding I'd sent you!"

"Oh, bother! that can't be. Don't you see how civilly they speak of me in their letter? They're afraid of me, you may depend on it. By the way, t.i.t, how much did you promise to come down, if you got the thing?"

"_Come down!_--I--really--by Jove, I didn't think of such a thing!

No--I'm sure I didn't"--answered t.i.tmouse, as if new light had burst in upon him.

"Why, t.i.t, I never see'd such a goose! That's it, depend upon it--it's the whole thing! That's what they're driving at, in the note!--Why, t.i.t, where _was_ your wits? D' ye think such gents as them--great lawyers, too--will work for nothing?--You must write at once and tell them you will come down handsome--say a couple of hundreds, besides expenses--Gad! 'twill set you on your pins again, t.i.tty!--Rot me! now I think of it, if I didn't dream last night that you was a Member of Parliament or something of that sort."

"A member of Parliament! And so I shall, if all this turns up well--I shall be _that_ at least!" replied t.i.tmouse, exultingly.

"You see if my dream don't come true! You see, t.i.tty, I'm _always_ a-thinking of you, day and night. Never was two fellows that was such close friends as we was from the very beginning of knowing each other!"

[They had been acquainted with each other about half a year.]

"Hucky, what a cruel scamp I was to behave to you in the way I did--curse me, if I couldn't cry to see your eye bunged up in that way!"

"Pho! dear t.i.tty, I knew you loved me all the while"--whined Huckaback, "and meant no harm; you wasn't yourself when you did it--and besides, I deserved ten times more! If you had killed me I should have liked you as much as ever!"

"Give us your hand, Hucky! Let's forgive one another!" cried t.i.tmouse, excitedly; and their hands were quickly locked together.

"If we don't mismanage the thing, we shall be all right yet, t.i.tty; but you won't do anything without speaking to _me_ first--will you, t.i.tty?"

"The thoughts of it all going right again is enough to set me wild, Hucky--But what shall we do to set the thing going again?"

"_Quarter past one!_" quivered the voice of the paralytic watchman beneath, startling the friends out of their exciting colloquy; his warning being at the same time silently seconded by the long-wicked candle, burning within half an inch of its socket. They hastily agreed that t.i.tmouse should immediately write to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, a proper [_i. e._ a most abject] letter, solemnly pledging himself to obey their injunctions in everything for the future, and offering them a handsome reward for their exertions, if successful.

"Well--good-night, Huck! good-night," said t.i.tmouse, rising. "I'm not the least sleepy--I sha'n't sleep a wink all night long! I shall sit up to write my letter--you haven't got a sheet of paper here, by the way?--I've used all mine." [That was, he had, some months before, bought a sheet to write a letter, and had so used it.]

Huckaback produced a sheet, somewhat crumpled, from a drawer. "I'd give a hundred if I had them!" said he; "I sha'n't care a straw for the hiding I've got to-night--though I'm a _leetle_ sore after it, too--and what the deuce am I to say to-morrow to Messrs. Diaper"----

"Oh, you can't hardly be at a loss for a lie that'll suit _them_, surely!--So good-night, Hucky--good-night!"

Huckaback wrung his friend's hand, and was in a moment or two alone.

"Haven't my fingers been itching all the while to be at the fellow!"

exclaimed he, as he shut the door. "But, somehow, I've got too soft a sperrit, and can't bear to hurt any one;--and then--if the chap gets his 10,000 a-year--why--hem! t.i.tty a'n't such a bad fellow, in the main, after all."

If t.i.tmouse had been many degrees higher in the grade of society, _he would still have met with his Huckaback_;--a trifle more polished, perhaps, but hardly more quick-sighted or effective than, in his way, had been the vulgar being he had just quitted.

t.i.tmouse hastened homeward. How it was he knew not; but the feelings of elation with which he had quitted Huckaback did not last long; they rapidly sank, in the cold night-air, lower and lower, the farther he got from Leicester Square. He tried to recollect _what it was_ that had made him take so very different a view of his affairs from that with which he had entered Huckaback's room. He had still a vague impression that they were not desperate; that Huckaback had told him so, _and somehow proved it_; but how he now knew not--he could not recollect. As Huckaback had gone on from time to time, t.i.tmouse's little mind seemed to himself to comprehend and appreciate what was being said, and to gather encouragement from it; but _now_--consume it!--he stopped--rubbed his forehead--what the deuce WAS it? By the time that he had reached his own door, he felt in as deplorable and despairing a humor as ever. He sat down to write his letter at once; but, after many vain efforts to express his meaning--his feelings being not in the least degree relieved by the many oaths he uttered--he at length furiously dashed his pen, point-wise, upon the table, and thereby destroyed the only implement of the sort which he possessed. Then he tore, rather than pulled off, his clothes; blew out his candle with a furious _puff_; and threw himself on his bed--but in so doing banged the back of his head against the back of the bed--and which of the two suffered more, for some time after, probably Mr. t.i.tmouse was best able to tell.

Hath, then--oh, t.i.tmouse! fated to undergo much!--the blind jade Fortune, in her mad vagaries--she, the G.o.ddess whom thou hast so long foolishly wors.h.i.+pped--at length cast her sportful eye upon thee, and singled thee out to become the envy of millions of admiring fools, by reason of the pranks she will presently make thee exhibit for her amus.e.m.e.nt? If this be indeed, as at present it promises, her intent, she truly, to me calmly watching her movements, appears resolved first to wreak her spite upon thee to the uttermost, and make thee pa.s.s through intense sufferings! Oh me! Oh me! Alas!

CHAPTER III.

The means by which Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, became possessed of the important information which had put them into motion, as we have seen, to find out by advertis.e.m.e.nt one yet unknown to them, it will not be necessary for some time to explain. Theirs was a keen house, truly, and dealing princ.i.p.ally in the criminal line of business; and they would not, one may be sure, have lightly committed themselves to their present extent, namely, in inserting such an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the newspapers, and, above all, going so far in their disclosures to t.i.tmouse. Their prudence in the latter step, however, was very questionable to themselves even; and they immediately afterwards deplored together the precipitation with which Mr. Quirk had communicated to t.i.tmouse the nature and extent of his possible good fortune. It was Mr. Quirk's own doing, however, and done after as much expostulation as the cautious Gammon could venture to use. I say they had not _lightly_ taken up the affair; they had not "acted unadvisedly." They were fortified, first, by the opinion of Mr. MORTMAIN, an able and experienced conveyancer, who thus wound up an abstrusely learned opinion on the voluminous "case"

which had been submitted to him:--

"...Under all these circ.u.mstances, and a.s.suming as above, I am decidedly of opinion that the t.i.tle to the estates in question is at this moment not in their present possessor, (who represents the younger branch of the Dreddlington family,) but in the descendants of Stephen Dreddlington, through the female line; which brings us to Gabriel t.i.ttlebat t.i.tmouse. This person, however, seems not to have been at all aware of the existence of his rights, or he could hardly have been concerned in the pecuniary arrangements mentioned at fol. 33 of the case. Probably something may be heard of his heir by making careful inquiry in the neighborhood where he was last heard of, and issuing advertis.e.m.e.nts for his heir-at-law; care, of course, being taken not to be so specific in the terms of such advertis.e.m.e.nts as to attract the notice of A. B., (the party now in possession.) If such person should, by the means above suggested, be discovered, I advise proceedings to be commenced forthwith, under the advice of some gentleman of experience at the common-law bar.

"MOULDY MORTMAIN.

"_Lincoln's Inn, January_ 19, 18--."

This was sufficiently gratifying to the "house;" but, to make a.s.surance doubly sure, before embarking in so hara.s.sing and expensive an enterprise--one which lay a good deal, too, without the sphere of their practice, which as already mentioned, was chiefly in criminal law--the same _case_ (without Mr. Mortmain's opinion) was laid before a young conveyancer, who, having much less business than Mr. Mortmain, would, it was thought, "look into the case fully," though receiving only one-third of the fee which had been paid to Mr. Mortmain. And Mr. FUSSY FRANKPLEDGE--that was his name--_did_ "look into the case fully;" and in doing so, turned over two-thirds of his little library;--and also gleaned--by note and verbally--the opinions upon the subject of some half-dozen of his "learned friends;" to say nothing of the magnificent air with which he indoctrinated his eager and confiding pupils upon the subject. At length his imp of a clerk bore the precious result of his master's labors to Saffron Hill, in the shape of an "opinion," three times as long as, and indescribably more difficult to understand than, the opinion of Mr. Mortmain; and which if it demonstrated anything beyond the prodigious _cram_ which had been undergone by its writer for the purpose of producing it, demonstrated this--namely, that neither the party indicated by Mr. Mortmain, nor the one then actually in possession, had any more right to the estate than the aforesaid Mr.

Frankpledge; but that the happy individual so ent.i.tled was some third person. Messrs. Quirk and Gammon, a good deal fl.u.s.tered hereat, hummed and hawed on perusing these contradictory opinions of counsel learned in the law; and the usual and proper result followed--_i. e._ a "CONSULTATION," which was to solder up all the differences between Mr.

Mortmain and Mr. Frankpledge, or, at all events, strike out some light which might guide their clients on their adventurous way.

Now, Mr. Mortmain had been Mr. Quirk's conveyancer (whenever such a functionary's services had been required) for about twenty years; and Quirk was ready to suffer death in defence of any opinion of Mr.

Mortmain. Mr. Gammon swore by Frankpledge, who had been at school with him, and was a "rising man." Mortmain belonged to the old school--Frankpledge steered by the new lights. The former could point to some forty cases in the Law Reports, which had been ruled in conformity with his previously given opinion, and some twenty which had been overruled thereby; the latter gentleman, although he had been only five years in practice, had written an _opinion_ which had led to a suit--which had ended in a difference of opinion between the Court of King's Bench and the Common Pleas; the credit of having done which was, however, some time afterward, a little bit tarnished by the decision of a Court of Error, without hearing the other side, _against_ the opinion of Mr. Frankpledge. But----

Mr. Frankpledge quoted _so_ many cases, and went to the bottom of everything, and gave so much for his money--and was _so_ civil!--

Well, the consultation came off, at length, at Mr. Mortmain's chambers, at eight o'clock in the evening. A few minutes before that hour, Messrs.

Quirk and Gammon were to be seen in the clerk's room, in civil conversation with that prim functionary, who explained to them that _he_ did all Mr. Mortmain's drafting--pupils were _so_ idle; that Mr.

Mortmain did not score out much of what he (the aforesaid clerk) had drawn; that he noted up Mr. Mortmain's new cases for him in the reports, Mr. M. having so little time; and that the other day the Vice-Chancellor called on Mr. Mortmain--with several other matters of that sort, calculated to enhance the importance of Mr. Mortmain; who, as the clerk was asking Mr. Gammon, in a good-natured way, how long Mr. Frankpledge had been in practice, and where his chambers were--made his appearance, with a cheerful look and a bustling gait, having just walked down from his house in Queen's Square, with a comfortable bottle of old port on board. Shortly afterwards Mr. Frankpledge arrived, followed by his little clerk, bending beneath two bags of books, (unconscious bearer of as much law as had well-nigh split thousands of learned heads, and broken tens of thousands of hearts, in the making of, being destined to have a similar but far greater effect in the applying of,) and the consultation began.

As Frankpledge entered, he could not help casting a sheep's eye towards a table that glistened with _such_ an array of "papers," (a tasteful arrangement of Mr. Mortmain's clerk before every consultation;) and down sat the two conveyancers and the two attorneys. I devoutly wish I had time to describe the scene at length; but greater events are pressing upon me. The two conveyancers fenced with one another for some time very guardedly and good-humoredly: pleasant was it to observe the conscious condescension of Mortmain, the anxious energy and volubility of Frankpledge. When Mr. Mortmain said anything that seemed weighty or pointed, Quirk looked with an elated air, a quick triumphant glance, at Gammon; who, in his turn, whenever Mr. Frankpledge quoted an "old case"

from Bendloe, G.o.dbolt, or the Year Books, (which, having always piqued himself on his almost exclusive acquaintance with the modern cases, he made a point of doing,) gazed at Quirk with a smile of placid superiority. Mr. Frankpledge talked almost the whole time; Mr. Mortmain, immovable in the view of the case which he had taken in his "opinion,"

listened with an attentive, good-natured air, ruminating pleasantly the while upon the quality of the port he had been drinking, (the first of the bin which he had tasted,) and upon the decision which the Chancellor might come to on a case brought into court on his advice, and which had been argued that afternoon. At last Frankpledge unwittingly fell foul of a favorite crotchet of Mortmain's--and at it they went, hammer and tongs, for nearly twenty minutes, (it had nothing whatever to do with the case they were consulting upon.) In the end, Mortmain of course adhered to his points, and Frankpledge intrenched himself in his books; each slightly yielded to the views of the other on immaterial points, (or what would have appeared the use of the consultation?) but did that which both had resolved upon doing from the first, _i. e._ sticking to his original opinion. Both had talked an amazing deal of deep law, which had at least one effect, viz. it fairly drowned both Quirk and Gammon, who, as they went home, with not (it must be owned) the clearest perceptions in the world of what had been going on, (though, before going to the consultation, each had really known something about the case,) stood each stoutly by his conveyancer's opinion, each protesting that he had never been once misled--Quirk by Mortmain, or Gammon by Frankpledge--and each resolved to give _his_ man more of the conveyancing business of the house than he had before. I grieve to add, that they parted that night with a trifle less of cordiality than had been their wont. In the morning, however, this little irritation had pa.s.sed away; and they agreed, before giving up the case, to take the final opinion of Mr. TRESAYLE--the great Mr. Tresayle. He was, indeed, a wonderful conveyancer--a perfect miracle of real-property law-learning.

He had had such an enormous practice for forty-five years, that for the last ten he had never put his nose out of chambers for pure want of time, and at last of inclination; and had been so conversant with Norman French and law Latin, in the old English letter, that he had almost entirely forgotten how to write the modern English character. His opinions made their appearance in three different kinds of handwriting.

First, one that none but he and his old clerk could make out; secondly, one that none but he himself could read; and thirdly, one that neither he, nor his clerk, nor any one on earth, could decipher. The use of any one of these styles depended on--the difficulty of the case to be answered. If it were an easy one, the answer was very judiciously put into No. I.; if rather difficult, it, of course, went into No. II.; and if exceedingly difficult, (and also important,) it was very properly thrown into No. III.; being a question that really ought not to have been asked, and did not deserve an answer. The fruit within these uncouth sh.e.l.ls, however, was precious. Mr. Tresayle's law was supreme over everybody's else. It was currently reported that Lord Eldon even (who was himself slightly acquainted with such subjects) reverently deferred to the authority of Mr. Tresayle; and would lie winking and knitting his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows half the night, if he thought that Mr.

Tresayle's opinion on a case, and his own, differed. This was the great authority to whom, as in the last resort, Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap resolved to appeal. To his chambers they, within a day or two after their consultation at Mr. Mortmain's, despatched their case, (making no mention of the opinion which had been previously taken,) with a highly respectable fee, and a special compliment to his clerk, hoping to hear from that awful quarter within a month--which was the earliest average period within which Mr. Tresayle's opinions found their way to his patient but anxious clients. It came at length, with a note from Mr.

Prim, his clerk, intimating that they would find him, _i. e._ the aforesaid Mr. Prim, at his chambers the next morning, prepared to explain the opinion to them; having just had it read over to him by Mr.

Tresayle, for it proved to be in No. II. The opinion occupied about two pages; and the handwriting bore a strong resemblance to Chinese or Arabic, with a quaint intermixture of the uncial Greek character--it was impossible to contemplate it without a certain feeling of awe! In vain did old Quirk squint at it, from all corners, for nearly a couple of hours, (having first called in the a.s.sistance of a friend of his, an old attorney of upwards of fifty years' standing;) nay--even Mr. Gammon, foiled at length, could not for the life of him refrain from a soft curse or two. Neither of them could make anything of it--(as for Snap, they never showed it to him; it was not within his province--_i. e._ the Insolvent Debtors' Court, the Old Bailey, the Clerkenwell Sessions, the Police Offices, the inferior business of the Common Law Courts, and the worrying of the clerks of the office--a department in which he was perfection itself.)

To their great delight, Mr. Tresayle took Mr. Mortmain's view of the case. Nothing could be more terse, perspicuous, and conclusive than the great man's opinion. Mr. Quirk was in raptures, and that very day sent to procure an engraving of Mr. Tresayle, which had lately come out, for which he paid 5s., and ordered it to be framed and hung up in his own room, where already grinned a quaint resemblance, in black profile, of Mr. Mortmain, cheek by jowl with that of a notorious traitor who had been hanged in spite of Mr. Quirk's best exertions. In special good-humor, he a.s.sured Mr. Gammon, (who was plainly somewhat crestfallen about Mr. Frankpledge,) that everybody must have a beginning; that even he himself (Mr. Quirk) had been once only a beginner.