'There is at least some method in my Illusion,' he went on. 'You mentioned it. The solicitor is always occupied with the conduct of other people's affairs. That must be admitted. He is always engaged in considering how best to guide his fellow-man through the labyrinthine world. He receives his fellow-man at his entrance into the world, as a ward: he receives him grown up, as a client: he advises him all his life at every step and in every emergency. If the client goes into partnership, or marries, or buys a house, or builds one, or gets into trouble, the solicitor assists and advises him. When the client grows old, the solicitor makes his will. When the client dies, the solicitor becomes his executor and his trustee, and administers his estate for him. It is thus a life, as I said, entirely spent for other people. I know not of any other, unless it be of medicine, that so much can be said. And think what terrors, what anxieties, what disappointments, the solicitor witnesses and alleviates! Think of the family scandals he hushes up and keeps secret! Good heavens! if a solicitor in large practice were to tell what he knows, think of the terrible disclosures! He knows every thing. He knows more than a Roman Catholic priest, because his penitents not only reveal their own sins but also those of their wives and sons and friends and partners. And anxiety, I may tell you, makes a man better at confessing than penitence. Sometimes we bring actions at law and issue writs and so forth. Well now: this part of our business, which is disagreeable to us, is actually the most beneficent of any. Because, by means of the cases brought before the High Court of Justice, we remind the world that it must be law abiding as well as law worthy. The Law, in order to win respect, must first win fear. Force comes before order. The memory of force must be kept up. The presence of force must be felt. For instance, I have a libel case just begun. It is rather a bad libel. My libeller will suffer: he will bleed: but he will bleed for the public good, because thousands who are only anxious to libel and slander, to calumniate and defame their neighbours, will be deterred. Oh! it will be a most beneficent case--far reaching--striking terror into the hearts of ill-doers.--Well--this, my friends, is my Illusion. It is, I suppose, one of the many Illusions with which we cheat old age and rob it of its terrors. To everybody else I am a hard-fisted lawyer, exacting his pound of flesh from the unfortunate debtor, and making myself rich at the expense of the creditor.' 'Nonsense about how a man gets rich,' said the man of business. 'He can only get rich if he is capable. Quite right. Let the weak go under. Let the careless and the lazy starve.' 'At the same time,' said Elsie softly, 'it is not all illusion. There are others besides the careless and the lazy----'