"I have," said Horace, a little stiffly, "become suddenly acquainted with a case of a very similar kind." "Aha, I thought so--I daresay there's plenty," said Stenhouse. "Capital cases for rising young barristers that want to show in the papers and get themselves known. Famous things for young fellows, indeed, in general--that is to say," he added, more slowly, "if the heir happens to be anybody, or to have friends or money sufficient to see the thing out. In that case it does not matter much whether he loses or wins. Thinking perhaps of striking off from my friend Pouncet and establishing yourself, eh? Could not do better than start with such an affair in hand." "I should be glad of more experience first," said Horace; "and, to tell the truth, I don't care for beginning by betraying old friends. Mr. Pouncet has behaved very liberally by me, receiving me when I had very little qualification." "Pouncet!" cried Mr. Stenhouse--"you don't mean to say that Pouncet has been burning his fingers in any such equivocal concerns. Come, come, my young friend, we must be cautious about this. Mr. Pouncet is a most respectable man." "Mr. Stenhouse," said Horace, "I was, as it happens, at Tinwood this morning--perhaps you know Tinwood?" "A little," said the other, with his most engaging smile. "There I met, partly by chance," said Horace, feeling himself provoked into excitement by the perfect coolness of his antagonist, "an old man, who gave me an entire history of the first finding of the coal." "Ah, it was a very simple business. I was there myself, with a scientific friend of mine; a blind fellow, blind as a mole to everything that concerns himself--feeling about the world in spectacles, and as useless for ordinary purposes as if he had moved in a glass case," said Mr. Stenhouse; "extraordinary, is it not? It was he who found the first traces of that coal." "And found them," said Horace, pointedly, "before the land was purchased by Mr. Pouncet and yourself from Squire Musgrave of the Grange." "Ah, we had better say as little as possible about that in the present company. Pouncet mightn't like it--it might look ugly enough for Pouncet if there was much talk on the subject," said Mr. Stenhouse, sympathetically glancing towards his old partner, and subduing his own smile in friendly deprecation of a danger in which he seemed to feel no share. "And how might it look for you?" said Horace, with his rough and coarse boldness. Mr. Stenhouse laughed, and turned round upon him with the most candid face in the world. "My dear fellow, Squire Musgrave was no client of mine!" said the good-humoured lawyer. "The utmost punctilio of professional honour could not bind _me_ to take care of his interests. I was a young fellow like yourself, with my fortune to make. You put it very cleverly, I confess, and it might look ugly enough for Pouncet; but, my excellent young friend, it is nothing in the world to me."