licorse, the
lawyer."

"Then, sir, you have come to the right man for it. My name is
Jellicorse, and greatly at your service. Allow me the honor of inviting
you within."

"My name is Yordas--Sir Duncan Yordas," said the stranger, when seated
in the lawyer's private room. "My father, Philip Yordas, was a client of
yours, and of other legal gentlemen before he came to you. Upon the day
of his death, in the year 1777, you prepared his will, which you have
since found to be of no effect, except as regards his personal estate,
and about one-eighth part of the realty. Of the bulk of the land,
including Scargate Hall, he could not dispose, for the simple reason
that it had been strictly entailed by a deed executed by my grandfather
and his wife in 1751. Under that entail I take in fee, for it could not
have been barred without me; and I never concurred in any disentailing
deed, and my father never knew that such was needful."

"Excuse me, Sir Duncan, but you seem to be wonderfully apt with the
terms of our profession."

"I could scarcely be otherwise, after all that I have had to do with
law, in India. Our first object is to apply our own laws, and our second
to spread our religion. But no more of that. Do you admit the truth of a
matter so stated that you can not fail to grasp it?"

Sir Duncan Yordas, as he put this question, fixed large, unwavering, and
piercing eyes (against which no spectacles were any shelter) upon the
mild, amiable, and, generally speaking, very honest orbs of sight
which had lighted the path of the elder gentleman to good repute and
competence. But who may turn a lawyer's hand from the Heaven-sped legal
plough?

"Am I to understand, Sir Duncan Yordas, that your visit to me is of an
amicable nature, and intended (without prejudice to other interests) to
ascertain, so far as may be compatible with professional rules, how far
my clients are acquainted with documents alleged or imagined to be in
existence, and how far their conduct might be guided by desire to afford
every reasonable facility?"

"You are to understand simply this, that as the proper owner of Scargate
Hall, and the main part of the estates held with it, I require you to
sign a memorandum that you hold all the title-deeds on my behalf, and to
deliver at once to me that entailing instrument of 1751, under which I
make my claim."

"You speak, sir, as if you had already brought your action, and entered
verdict. Legal process may be di