Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/417

 packet which the gentleman carried in his hand. His visitor observed the look, and proceeded.

It is no common business,' said he; 'nor have these papers reached my hands without long trouble and great expense.'

The attorney cast a still more anxious look at the packet: and his visitor, untying the string that bound it, disclosed a quantity of promissory notes, with copies of deeds, and other documents.

Upon these papers,' said the client, the man whose name they bear, has raised, as you will see, large sums of money, for some years past. There was a tacit understanding between him and the men into whose hands they originally went—and from whom I have by degrees purchased the whole, for treble and quadruple their nominal value—that these loans should be from time to time renewed, until a given period had elapsed. Such an understanding is nowhere expressed. He has sustained many losses of late; and these obligations accumulating upon him at once, would crush him to the earth."

The whole amount is many thousands of pounds,' said the attorney, looking over the papers.

It is,' said the client.

What are we to do?' inquired the man of business.

Do!' replied the client, with sudden vehemence. Put every engine of the law in force, every trick that ingenuity can devise and rascality execute; fair means and foul; the open oppression of the law, aided by all the craft of its most ingenious practitioners. I would have him die a harassing and lingering death. Ruin him, seize and sell his lands and goods, drive him from house and home, and drag him forth a beggar in his old age, to die in a common grave."

But the costs, my dear sir, the costs of all this, reasoned the attorney, when he had recovered from his momentary surprise. If the defendant be a man of straw, who is to pay the costs, sir?'