United States or El Salvador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"We shall have a little rain this afternoon," said Mr. Stickatit, anxious to show that he had dropped the shop, and that having done so, he was ready for any of the world's ordinary converse. Sir Henry scowled at him from under the penthouse lid of his hat, and passed on in his walk, without answering a word. The thing had gone too far with him for affectation.
Stickatit, with a little smile. "And I think otherwise, sir," said the late solicitor-general, in a voice that made them all start. "Very much otherwise. That document is not worth the paper on which it is written. And now, I warn you two, who have been named as executors, that such is the fact."
Dry and Stickatit, attorneys of old Bucklersbury! No, not for all the uncles! not for any uncle! "They net four thousand pounds a year," said Mr. Bertram; "and in process of time you would be the working partner, and have, at any rate, a full half of the business." But, no! George was not to be talked into such a scheme as that by the offer of any loan, by the mention of any number of thousands.
But when men are driven into corners when they are hemmed in on all sides, so that they have no escape, to what else than bravado can they have recourse? With Sir Henry the game was up; and no one knew this better than himself. He was walking up and down the platform, with his hat over his brows, and his hands in his trousers-pockets, when Mr. Stickatit came up.
But Sir Henry wanted no allies wanted no one in that room to side with him. Hostility to them all was his present desire; to them and to one other that other one who had brought upon him all this misfortune; that wife of his bosom, who had betrayed his interests and shattered his hopes. "I believe there is nothing further to detain us at the present moment," said Mr. Stickatit. "Mr.
George Stickatit, junior, paid for the accommodation; which was no more than right, for he could put it in the bill, and Sir Lionel could not. The mind of Sir Henry was too much intent on other things to enable him to think about the fly. "Well, George," said Sir Lionel; "so it's all over at last. My poor brother! I wish I could have been with you at the funeral; but it was impossible.
And so was made clear what were the tidings with which that express messenger had been laden. There was little or nothing more to be said on the matter between George Bertram and Mr. Stickatit.
"I should have been down for the funeral," said Mr. Stickatit; "but I have been kept going about the property, ever since the death, up to this moment, I may say. There's the document, gentlemen." And the will was laid on the table. "The personalty will be sworn under five. The real will be about two more. Well, Pritchett, and how are you this morning?" Sir Henry said but little to anybody.
Gentlemen, good-morning. Mr. Stickatit, I caution you not to dispose, under that will, of anything of which Mr. Bertram may have died possessed." And so saying, he took up his hat, and left the house. And what would he have done had Bertram told him that Lady Harcourt was staying at Mr. Jones's, in the red brick house on the other side of the Green? What can any man do with a recusant wife?
Sir Henry, when this paragraph was read this paragraph from which his own name was carefully excluded dashed his fist down upon the table, so that the ink leaped up out of the inkstand that stood before the lawyer, and fell in sundry blots upon the document. But no one said anything. There was blotting-paper at hand, and Mr. Stickatit soon proceeded.
Word Of The Day