They are serious enough in that -
whimsical as your world is - and lay the blame on us afterwards.
We, in our profession, are little else than mirrors after all, Mr.
Alfred; but, we are generally consulted by angry and quarrelsome
people who are not in their best looks, and it's rather hard to
quarrel with us if we reflect unpleasant aspects. I think,' said
Mr. Snitchey, 'that I speak for Self and Craggs?'
'Decidedly,' said Craggs.
'And so, if Mr. Britain will oblige us with a mouthful of ink,'
said Mr. Snitchey, returning to the papers, 'we'll sign, seal, and
deliver as soon as possible, or the coach will be coming past
before we know where we are.'
If one might judge from his appearance, there was every probability
of the coach coming past before Mr. Britain knew where HE was; for
he stood in a state of abstraction, mentally balancing the Doctor
against the lawyers, and the lawyers against the Doctor, and their
clients against both, and engaged in feeble attempts to make the
thimble and nutmeg-grater (a new idea to him) square with anybody's
system of philosophy; and, in short, bewildering himself as much as
ever his great namesake has done with theories and schools. But,
Clemency, who was his good Genius - though he had the meanest
possible opinion of her understanding, by reason of her seldom
troubling herself with abstract speculations, and being always at
hand to do the right thing at the right time - having produced the
ink in a twinkling, tendered him the further service of recalling
him to himself by the application of her elbows; with which gentle
flappers she so jogged his memory, in a more literal construction
of that phrase than usual, that he soon became quite fresh and
brisk.
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