was sufficiently gratifying to the "house;" but, to make assurance
doubly sure, before embarking in so harassing and expensive an
enterprise--one which lay a good deal, too, without the sphere of their
practice, which as already mentioned, was chiefly in criminal law--the
same _case_ (without Mr. Mortmain's opinion) was laid before a young
conveyancer, who, having much less business than Mr. Mortmain, would, it
was thought, "look into the case fully," though receiving only one-third
of the fee which had been paid to Mr. Mortmain. And Mr. FUSSY
FRANKPLEDGE--that was his name--_did_ "look into the case fully;" and in
doing so, turned over two-thirds of his little library;--and also
gleaned--by note and verbally--the opinions upon the subject of some
half-dozen of his "learned friends;" to say nothing of the magnificent
air with which he indoctrinated his eager and confiding pupils upon the
subject. At length his imp of a clerk bore the precious result of his
master's labors to Saffron Hill, in the shape of an "opinion," three
times as long as, and indescribably more difficult to understand than,
the opinion of Mr. Mortmain; and which if it demonstrated anything
beyond the prodigious _cram_ which had been undergone by its writer for
the purpose of producing it, demonstrated this--namely, that neither the
party indicated by Mr. Mortmain, nor the one then actually in
possession, had any more right to the estate than the aforesaid Mr.
Frankpledge; but that the happy individual so entitled was some third
person. Messrs. Quirk and Gammon, a good deal flustered hereat, hummed
and hawed on perusing these contradictory opinions of counsel learned in
the law; and the usual and proper result followed--_i. e._ a
"CONSULTATION," which was to solder up all the differences between Mr.
Mortmain and Mr. Frankpledge, or, at all events, strike out some light
which might guide their clients on their adventurous way.

Now, Mr. Mortmain had been Mr. Quirk's conveyancer (whenever such a
functionary's services had been required) for about twenty years; and
Quirk was ready to suffer death in defence of any opinion of Mr.
Mortmain. Mr. Gammon swore by Frankpledge, who had been at school with
him, and was a "rising man." Mortmain belonged to the old
school--Frankpledge steered by the new lights. The former could point to
some forty cases in the Law Reports, which had been ruled in conformity
with his previously given opinion, and some twenty which h