young man dust it and
open it, and then having flattened it with his hand, glance over it
till he came to a certain spot. The pale-faced clerk, accustomed
to such documents, glanced over the ambages, the "whereases," the
"aforesaids," the rich exuberance of "admors.," "exors.," and
"assigns," till he deftly came to the pith of the matter, and then
he began to make extracts, a date here and a date there. John Ball
watched him all the time, till the door was opened, and old Mr Slow
himself appeared in the room.

He stepped across the papers to shake hands with his client, and then
shook hands also with Mr Ball, whom he knew. His eye glanced at once
down to the box, and after that over towards the pale-faced clerk.
Mr Ball perceived that the attorney had joined in his own mind the
operation that was going on with these special documents, and the
presence of these two special visitors; and that he, in some measure,
regretted the coincidence. There was something wrong, and John Ball
began to consider whether the old lawyer could be an old scoundrel.
Some lawyers, he knew, were desperate scoundrels. He said nothing,
however; but, obeying Mr Slow's invitation, followed him and his
cousin into the sanctum sanctorum of the chambers.

"They didn't tell me you were here at first," said the lawyer, in a
tone of vexation, "or I wouldn't have had you shown in there."

John Ball thought that this was, doubtless, true, and that very
probably they might not have been put in among those papers had Mr
Slow known what was being done.

"The truth is," continued the lawyer, "the Duke of F----'s man of
business was with me, and they did not like to interrupt me."

Mr Slow was a grey-haired old man, nearer eighty than seventy,
who, with the exception of a fortnight's holiday every year which
he always spent at Margate, had attended those same chambers in
Lincoln's Inn Fields daily for the last sixty years. He was a stout,
thickset man, very leisurely in all his motions, who walked slowly,
talked slowly, read slowly, wrote slowly, and thought slowly; but
who, nevertheless, had the reputation of doing a great deal of
business, and doing it very well. He had a partner in the business,
almost as old as himself, named Bideawhile; and they who knew them
both used to speculate which of the two was the most leisurely. It
was, however, generally felt that, though Mr Slow was the slowest in
his speech, Mr Bideawhile was the longest in getting any