On the other side Mr. Chaffanbrass rose to begin the battle. Mr. Furnival had already been engaged in sundry of those preliminary skirmishes which had been found necessary before the fight had been commenced in earnest, and therefore the turn had now come for Mr. Chaffanbrass. All this, however, had been arranged beforehand, and it had been agreed that if possible Dockwrath should be made to fall into the clutches of the Old Bailey barrister. It was pretty to see the meek way in which Mr. Chaffanbrass rose to his work; how gently he smiled, how he fidgeted about a few of the papers as though he were not at first quite master of his situation, and how he arranged his old wig in a modest, becoming manner, bringing it well forward over his forehead. His voice also was low and soft;—so low that it was hardly heard through the whole court, and persons who had come far to listen to him began to feel themselves disappointed. And it was pretty also to see how Dockwrath armed himself for the encounter—how he sharpened his teeth, as it were, and felt the points of his own claws. The little devices of Mr. Chaffanbrass did not deceive him. He knew what he had to expect; but his pluck was good, as is the pluck of a terrier when a mastiff prepares to attack him. Let Mr. Chaffanbrass do his worst; that would all be over in an hour or so. But when Mr. Chaffanbrass had done his worst, Orley Farm would still remain.
“I believe you were a tenant of Lady Mason’s at one time, Mr. Dockwrath?” asked the barrister.
“I was; and she turned me out. If you will allow me I will tell you how all that happened, and how I was angered by the usage I received.” Mr. Dockwrath was determined to make a clean breast of it, and rather go before his tormentor in telling all that there was to be told, than lag behind as an unwilling witness.
“Do,” said Mr. Chaffanbrass. “That will be very kind of you. When I have learned all that, and one other little circumstance of the same nature, I do not think I shall want to trouble you any more.” And then Mr. Dockwrath did tell it all;—how he had lost the two fields, how he had thus become very angry, how this anger had induced him at once to do that which he had long thought of doing—search, namely, among the papers of old Mr. Usbech, with the view of ascertaining what might be the real truth as regarded that doubtful codicil.
“And you found what you searched for, Mr. Dockwrath?”
“I did,” said Dockwrath.
“Without very much delay, apparently?”
“I was two or three days over the work.”
“But you found exactly what you wanted?”
“I found what I expected to find.”
“And that, although all those papers had been subjected to the scrutiny of Messrs. Round and Crook at the time of that other trial twenty years ago?”
“I was sharper than them, Mr. Chaffanbrass—a deal sharper.”
“So I perceive,” said Chaffanbrass, and now he had pushed back his wig a little, and his eyes had begun to glare with an ugly red light. “Yes,” he said, “it will be long, I think, before my old friends Round and Crook are as sharp as you are, Mr. Dockwrath.”
“Upon my word I agree with you, Mr. Chaffanbrass.”
“Yes; Round and Crook are babies to you, Mr. Dockwrath;” and now Mr. Chaffanbrass began to pick at his chin with his finger, as he was accustomed to do when he warmed to his subject. “Babies to you! You have had a good deal to do with them, I should say, in getting up this case.”
“I have had something to do with them.”
“And very much they must have enjoyed your society, Mr. Dockwrath! And what wrinkles they must have learned from you! What a pleasant oasis it must have been in the generally somewhat dull course of their monotonous though profitable business! I quite envy Round and Crook having you alongside of them in their inner council-chamber.”
“I know nothing about that, sir.”
“No; I dare say you don’t;—but they’ll remember it. Well, when you’d turned over your father-in-law’s papers for three days you found what you looked for?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You had been tolerably sure that you would find it before you began, eh?”
“Well, I had expected that something would turn up.”
“I have no doubt you did—and something has turned up. That gentleman sitting next to you there—who is he?”
“Joseph Mason, Esquire, of Groby Park,” said Dockwrath.
“So I thought. It is he that is to have Orley Farm, if Lady Mason and her son should lose it?”
“In that case he would be the heir.”
“Exactly. He would be the heir. How pleasant it must be to you to find yourself on such affectionate terms with—the heir! And when he comes into his inheritance, who is to be tenant? Can you tell us that?”
Dockwrath here paused for a moment. Not that he hesitated as to telling the whole truth. He had fully made up his mind to do so, and to brazen the matter out, declaring that of course he was to be considered worthy of his reward. But there was that in the manner and eye of Chaffanbrass which stopped him for a moment, and his enemy immediately took advantage of this hesitation. “Come sir,” said he, “out with it. If I don’t get it from you, I shall from somebody else. You’ve been very
