Many were the conversations and consultations which the partners had had with Messrs. Mortmain and Frankpledge respectively, upon the interesting question, whether there were any mode of at once securing themselves against the ingratitude of Titmouse, and protecting themselves against the penalties of the law. It made old Mr. Quirk's bald head, even, flush all over whenever he thought of their bill being taxed, or contemplated himself the inmate of a prison, (above all, at his advanced time of life,) with mournful leisure to meditate upon the misdeeds that had sent him thither, to which profitable exercise the legislature would have specially stimulated him by a certain _fine_ above mentioned. As for Gammon, he knew there _must_ be a way of doing the thing somehow or another; for his friend Frankpledge felt infinitely less difficulty in the way than Mortmain, whom he considered a timid and old-fashioned practitioner. The courts, said Mr. Frankpledge, were now setting their faces strongly against the doctrine of Maintenance, as being founded on a bygone state of things: _cessante ratione cessat et ipsa lex_, was his favorite maxim. There was no wrong without a remedy, he said; and was there not a _wrong_ in the case of a poor man wrongfully deprived of his own? And how could this be _remedied_, if the old law of Maintenance stood like a bugbear in the way of humane and spirited practitioners? Was no one to be at liberty to take up the cause of the oppressed, encouraged by the prospect of an ample recompense? It might be said, perhaps--let the claimant sue _in formâ pauperis_: but then he must swear that he is not worth five pounds; and a man may not be able to take that oath, and yet be unequal to the commencement of a suit requiring the outlay of thousands. Moreover, a pretty prospect it was for such a suitor, (_in formâ pauperis_,) if he should happen to be nonsuited--to be "put to his election, whether to be whipped or pay the costs."[5] Thus reasoned within himself that astute person, Mr. Frankpledge; and at length satisfied himself that he had framed an instrument which would "meet the case"--that "would hold water." To the best of my recollection, it was a BOND, conditioned to pay the sum of ten thousand pounds to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, within two months of Titmouse's being put into possession of the rents and profits of the estate in question. The _condition_ of that bond was, as its framer believed, drawn in a masterly manner; and his draft was lying before Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, on the Wednesday morning, (_i. e._ the day after Titmouse's interview with them,) and had succeeded at length in exciting the approbation of Mr. Quirk himself; when--whew!--down came a note from Mr. Frankpledge, to the effect that, "since preparing the draft bond," he had "had reason _slightly to modify_ his original opinion," owing to his "having lit upon a LATE CASE," in which an instrument precisely similar to the one which he had