"Well--a--well, and what has brought you down here? Very glad to see you, you know; but you would not run down for fun, I'm afraid," said Sir Jekyl.
"Au--no--au, well, Sir Jekyl, it has turned out, sir--by gad, sir, I believe them fellows _are_ in England, after all!"
"What do you mean by them fellows?" said Sir Jekyl, with a very dark look, unconsciously repeating the attorney's faulty grammar.
"Strangways and Deverell, you know--I mean them--Herbert Strangways, and a young man named Deverell--they're in England, I've been informed, very private--and Strangways has been with Smith, Rumsey, and Snagg--the office--you know; and there is something on the stocks there."
As the attorney delivered this piece of intelligence he kept his eye shrewdly on Sir Jekyl, rather screwed and wrinkled, as a man looks against a storm.
"Oh!--is that all? There's nothing very alarming, is there, in that?--though, d---- me, I don't see, Mr. Pelter, how you reconcile your present statement with what you and your partner wrote to me twice within the last few weeks."
"Very true, Sir Jekyl; perfectly true, sir. Our information misled us totally; they have been devilish sharp, sir--devilish sly. We never were misled before about that fellow's movements--not that they were ever of any real importance."
"And why do you think them--but maybe you don't--of more consequence now?"
Pelter looked unpleasantly important, and shook his head.
"What _is_ it--I suppose I may _know_?" said Sir Jekyl.
"It looks queerish, Sir Jekyl, there's no denying that--in fact, very queerish indeed--both me and my partner think so. You recollect the deed?"
"No--devil a deed--d---- them all!--I don't remember one of them. Why, you seem to forget it's nearly ten years ago," interrupted the Baronet.
"Ah!--no--not _ten_--the copy of the deed that we got hold of, pretending to be a marriage settlement. It was brought us, you know, in a very odd way, but quite fair."
"Yes, I do remember--yes, to be sure--that thing you thought was a forgery, and put in our way to frighten us. Well, and do you fancy that's a genuine thing now?"
"I always thought it might--I think it _may_--in fact, I think it _is_. We have got a hint they rely on it. And here's a point to be noted: the deed fixes five-and-twenty as the period of his majority; and just as he attains that age, his father being nearly that time dead, they put their shoulders to the wheel."