Shuttleworthy." The people had really never thought of this before. They
had only remembered certain threats of disinheritance uttered a year
or two previously by the uncle (who had no living relative except the
nephew), and they had, therefore, always looked upon this disinheritance
as a matter that was settled--so single-minded a race of beings were the
Rattleburghers; but the remark of "Old Charley" brought them at once to
a consideration of this point, and thus gave them to see the possibility
of the threats having been nothing more than a threat. And straightway
hereupon, arose the natural question of cui bono?--a question that
tended even more than the waistcoat to fasten the terrible crime upon
the young man. And here, lest I may be misunderstood, permit me to
digress for one moment merely to observe that the exceedingly brief and
simple Latin phrase which I have employed, is invariably mistranslated
and misconceived. "Cui bono?" in all the crack novels and elsewhere,--in
those of Mrs. Gore, for example, (the author of "Cecil,") a lady who
quotes all tongues from the Chaldaean to Chickasaw, and is helped to her
learning, "as needed," upon a systematic plan, by Mr. Beckford,--in all
the crack novels, I say, from those of Bulwer and Dickens to those of
Bulwer and Dickens to those of Turnapenny and Ainsworth, the two little
Latin words cui bono are rendered "to what purpose?" or, (as if quo
bono,) "to what good." Their true meaning, nevertheless, is "for whose
advantage." Cui, to whom; bono, is it for a benefit. It is a purely
legal phrase, and applicable precisely in cases such as we have now
under consideration, where the probability of the doer of a deed hinges
upon the probability of the benefit accruing to this individual or to
that from the deed's accomplishment. Now in the present instance, the
question cui bono? very pointedly implicated Mr. Pennifeather. His
uncle had threatened him, after making a will in his favour, with
disinheritance. But the threat had not been actually kept; the original
will, it appeared, had not been altered. Had it been altered, the only
supposable motive for murder on the part of the suspected would
have been the ordinary one of revenge; and even this would have been
counteracted by the hope of reinstation into the good graces of the
uncle. But the will being unaltered, while the threat to alter remained
suspended over the nephew's head, there appears at once the very
strongest po