"If you will tell me, Miss Tinker, the nature of your trouble I may be able to prescribe for you. We poor lawyers are not so clever as the doctors. We can't diagnose by the looks, or, I confess, I should not advise you to abandon hope." "And this is the lawyer Ben said couldn't say Boh! to a goose," thought Dorothy. "Now, how shall I begin?" she said. "Suppose you try the beginning," he suggested. "You know Mr. Pinder, of Holmfirth?" asked Dorothy, glancing at a formidable pile of papers on the desk labelled "Pinder at the suit of Tinker." "If you mean Mr. Tom Pinder, of Co-op Mill, Hinchliff Mill, I think I may go so far as to say I do." "Come, that's something," said Dorothy. "You are so very cautious you might have added 'without prejudice.' Now is it a very bad case?" she concluded. "Really! Miss Tinker." "Now I don't want any humming and ha-ing, you know, Mr. Sykes. I take a very great interest in Mr. Pinder--well, not in him you know. That's ridiculous: but in Lucy, you know" and Dorothy nodded with great significance, whilst the lawyer felt that he was getting deeper and deeper into a bog. "I confess I don't know," he said, "and I must ask you to be a little more explicit." "Well,--dear me! How tiresome you are--it's about this quarrel between uncle Jabez and Mr. Pinder." "Are you Mr. Tinker's niece? Then really, Miss Tinker, I think if your uncle wants to open up any negotiations towards a settlement he'd better send his lawyer." "What! Nehemiah Wimpenny! How could he? Didn't I tell you no one was to know anything of my visit but you and me, and Mr. Wimpenny's the very last man in the world I'd chose for any errand of mine." "But in what can I help you, Miss Tinker? You will understand, of course, that I cannot discuss my client's affairs with anyone without his knowledge and privilege,--no, not though an angel drop from the clouds." "I suppose that's a _rechauffé_ from one of your pretty sayings to Lizzie Hudson. Oh! Yes! I know all about it Mr. Sykes. Lizzie and I were at school together, and I thought it just odious of her not to ask me to her wedding." "And only a minute ago she asked me if there were a Mrs. Sykes," reflected the harassed young man. "Will she ever get to her story?" "And that's what gave me confidence to come to you, Mr. Sykes. Not the not being asked to the wedding, but because you were Lizzie's husband, and I did think of calling on her and bringing her with me, but she'd have guessed,"--and here Dorothy stopped abruptly. "Yes, she'd have guessed?" said Mr. Sykes, encouragingly. "Never you mind what Lizzie would have guessed. It's about this lawsuit I've come. I suppose I'd better come to the point." "Wish to heaven you would," thought the lawyer. "Now which do you think will win, uncle or Mr. Pinder?" "If law and justice were one, Miss Tinker, there could only be one answer--Mr. Pinder." "But they aren't,--so that means Tom, that's Mr. Pinder, will lose."