Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/116

108 searching for the hidden meaning of everything he told her. During the recital which follows, her color often came and went, but those wonderful eyes never left the narrator's face a moment.

They put the attorney on his mettle, and he elaborated the matter more than I should have done: he articulated his topics; marked each salient fact by a long pause. In short, he told his story like an attorney, and not like a romancist. I cannot help that, you know; I'm not Procrustes.

, the seventeenth day of February, at about one of the clock, called on me at my place of business Mr. Griffith Gaunt, whom I need not here describe, inasmuch as his person and place of residence are well known to the court—what am I saying?—I mean, well known to yourself, Mistress Kate.

"The said Griffith, on entering my room, seemed moved, and I might say distempered, and did not give himself time to salute me and receive my obeisance, but addressed me abruptly and said as follows: 'Mr. Houseman, I am come to make my will.

("Dear me!" said Kate: then blushed, and was more on her guard.)

"I seated the young gentleman, and then replied, that his resolution aforesaid did him credit, the young being as mortal as the old. I said further, that many disasters had happened, in my experience, owing to the obstinacy with which men, in the days of their strength, shut their eyes to the precarious tenure under which all sons of Adam hold existence; and so, many a worthy gentleman dies in his sins,—and, what is worse, dies intestate.

"But the said Griffith interrupted me with some signs of impatience, and asked me bluntly, would I draw his will, and have it executed on the spot.

"I assented, generally; but I requested him, by way of needful preliminary, to obtain for me a copy of Mr. Charlton's will, under which, as I have always understood, the said Griffith inherits whatever real estate he hath to bequeath.

"Mr. Griffith Gaunt then replied to me, that Mr. Charlton's will was in London, and the exact terms of it could not be known until after the funeral,—that is to say, upon the nineteenth instant.

"Thereupon I explained to Mr. Gaunt that I must see and know what properties were devised in the will aforesaid, by the said Charlton, to Gaunt aforesaid, and how devised and described. Without this, I said, I could not correctly and sufficiently describe the same in the instrument I was now requested to prepare.

"Mr. Gaunt did not directly reply to this objection. But he pondered a little while, and then asked me if it were not possible for him, by means of general terms, to convey to a sole legatee whatever lands, goods, chattels, etc., Mr. Charlton might hereafter prove to have devised to him, the said Griffith Gaunt.

"I admitted this was possible, but objected that it was dangerous. I let him know that in matters of law general terms are a fruitful source of dispute, and I said I was one of those who hold it a duty to avert litigation from our clients.

"Thereupon Mr. Gaunt drew out of his bosom a pocket-book.

"The said pocket-book was shown to me by the said Gaunt, and I say it contained a paragraph from a newspaper, which I believe to have been cut out of the said newspaper with a knife, or a pair of scissors, or some trenchant instrument; and the said paragraph purported to contain an exact copy of a certain will and testament under which