like you who knows what he's about
it's all nothing. What can Mr Cheekey do to a gentleman who has got
nothing to conceal? But when a witness has something to hide,--and
sometimes there will be something,--then it is that Mr Cheekey comes
out strong. He looks into a man and sees that it's there, and then he
turns him inside out till he gets at it. That's what I call skinning
a witness. I saw a poor fellow once so knocked about by Mr Cheekey
that they had to carry him down speechless out of the witness-box."

It was a vivid description of all that Cousin Henry had pictured to
himself. And he had actually, by his own act, subjected himself to
this process! Had he been staunch in refusing to bring any action
against the newspaper, Mr Cheekey would have been powerless in
reference to him. And now he was summoned into Carmarthen to prepare
himself by minor preliminary pangs for the torture of the auto-da-fe
which was to be made of him.

"I don't see why I should go into Carmarthen at all," he said, having
paused a while after the eloquent description of the barrister's
powers.

"Not come into Carmarthen! Why, sir, you must complete the
instructions."

"I don't see it at all."

"Then do you mean to back out of it altogether, Mr Jones? I wouldn't
be afeared by Mr Cheekey like that!"

Then it occurred to him that if he did mean to back out of it
altogether he could do so better at a later period, when they might
hardly be able to catch him by force and bring him as a prisoner
before the dreaded tribunal. And as it was his purpose to avoid the
trial by giving up the will, which he would pretend to have found at
the moment of giving it up, he would ruin his own project,--as he
had done so many projects before,--by his imbecility at the present
moment. Cheekey would not be there in Mr Apjohn's office, nor the
judge and jury and all the crowd of the court to look at him.

"I don't mean to back out at all," he said; "and it's very
impertinent of you to say so."

"I didn't mean impertinence, Mr Jones;--only it is necessary you
should come into Mr Apjohn's office."

"Very well; I'll come to-morrow at three."

"And about the fly, Mr Jones?"

"I can come in my own carriage."

"Of course. That's what Mr Apjohn said. But if I may make so bold, Mr
Jones,--wouldn't all the people in Carmarthen know the old Squire's
carriage?"

Here was another trouble. Yes; all the people in Carmarthen would
know the old Squire's carriag