“Impossible:--it's such an Augean stable, that a regiment of attornies, with a legal Hercules at their head, could not do the needful in a night. We can't get at the facts,--at least we could not until within these few days; and the results of our investigations are so unexpected and staggering, that Adam and I,--and, indeed, all parties concerned,--are well nigh paralysed. Such a case has not come under my cognizance for years: if you were not in such a hurry I'd surprise you.” “I'm not pressed,--not at all. I share a chaise with another witness who picks me up in his way from the city; so I have only to keep my eye on the gates:--pray step across.” “No, hang it! the sun shines there; see how it exposes the clefts and time-worn face of the building, so that the entire side of the Inn looks as though it were in the last stage of decrepitude: it even makes _you_ look ten years older than you say you are, friend Waters. An elderly man should always walk in the shade.” “What whims and fancies!” said Waters, stepping lightly across the square. “You're the strangest fellow!--but come, your case, in a few words.” “Thus it is with us, then excuse me, but even in the shade you look really past the figure you put yourself at:--let me Bee, fifty-four, isn't it?” “Forty-seven! my good fellow! What the deuce--” “Rely upon it you're labouring under a mistake: it's full thirty years since I first met you in Jay's writ of right.--Speaking of you, I should say, in defiance of verbal statement founded on memory,--which is treacherous, I find, with regard to age, when we are getting grey,--but judging from the date written by the hand of time on the face of the deed, in wrinkles as crabbed as court-hand--” “I'm sixty. Well, well, be it so; and now for your case.” “No, Waters, you are not sixty; because if you were, by my reckoning, I should be sixty-seven, which I am not: but to resume. This is our case:--Joshua Kesterton came to London with no character, and nothing but a penny loaf in his pocket Good luck threw him in the way of the well-known Paul Winpennie: Paul had compassion on him, and raised him, by degrees, from an errand boy in his office, to first clerk; and, at last, took him in as joint partner in all his concerns. After some time, Paul retired to enjoy a splendid ease for the rest of his life. At the end of five years, he discovered a secret, namely, that an immense quantity of leisure was the worst stock a mercantile man could possibly have on hand. He was suddenly seen in the city again: whether he was not so keen as when he left it, or men had grown keener during his retirement, I know not; but Paul Winpennie, under whose touch every thing used to turn into gold, made ducks and drakes of his money; and, by half-a-dozen unlucky, or, as the world says, mad-cap speculations, was reduced from affluence to comparative beggary.” “Well, all this occurs every day, Hassell,” said Waters. “Ay, ay; but these are only preliminary facts.”