'And yet,' he remarked, 'you said once to Mr. Fairhaven that if there were in the world one lawyer where now there are a hundred, the world would be the better for it.'
'Strange,' he said, with a touch of pleasant satire, 'that the world has never been able to get along without us.'
'Never!' I exclaimed. 'Nay, you must be mistaken.'
'I am not mistaken. I can go as far back as the days of Abraham for proof. Did not that patriarch buy "the field of Ephron, which was in Macphelah, which was before Mamre; the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about?" The very words we read in Genesis. Do you mean to tell me that any one but a lawyer could have written such a description? We have our uses, my dear sir!'
I smiled. I was too happy to argue with him, and we parted the best of friends. In the evening I found myself, as I had designed, in Buttercup-square. I knocked at Mrs. Silver's door, and she herself opened it. Only Rachel and she were at home. I had kept her fully acquainted with the progress of affairs, and she knew that I expected to have my final interview with the lawyer on this day.
'All is settled,' I said. 'What do you see in my face?'
'It is in my heart. This is a supreme moment in my life. I feel that I am about to commence a great work.' Mrs. Silver did not reply, but looked earnestly at me. I noticed also that Rachel suspended her sewing. 'The vast fortune that Mr. Fairhaven left has been safely invested in Consols. What income, do you think, is derivable from the money?'
'What would you say to nearly nine thousand pounds a year?'
'As much as that?' asked Mrs. Silver, with an exclamation of astonishment.
'Quite as much. What is to be done with this great sum, of which I am the steward?'
'It is a grave question,' she said; 'one not easily answered.'