“Yes, Sir; there are,” said Mr. John Short, with much meaning.  “The will to be filed in the Registry is the last true will of Jonathan Meeson, of Pompadour Hall, in the county of Warwick, and the property concerned amounts to about two millions.  Upon last motion day, the death of Jonathan Meeson, who was supposed to have sunk in the Kangaroo, was allowed to be presumed, and probate has been taken out.  As a matter of fact, however, the said Jonathan Meeson perished in Kerguelen Land some days after the shipwreck, and before he died he duly executed a fresh will in favour of his nephew, Eustace H. Meeson, the gentleman before you.  Miss Augusta Smithers”—­

“What,” said the learned Registrar, “is this Miss Smithers whom we have been reading so much about lately—­the Kerguelen Land heroine?”

“Yes; I am Miss Smithers,” she said with a little blush; “and this is Lady Holmhurst, whose husband”—­and she checked herself.

“It gives me much pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Smithers,” said the learned Doctor, courteously shaking hands, and bowing to Lady Holmhurst—­proceedings which Eustace watched with the jaundiced eye of suspicion.  “He’s beginning already,” said that ardent lover to himself.  “I knew how it would be.  Trust my Gus into his custody?—­never!  I had rather be committed for contempt.”

“The best thing that I can do, Sir,” went on John Short, impatiently, for, to his severe eye, these interruptions were not seemly, “will be to at once offer you inspection of the document, which, I may state, is of an unusual character,” and he looked at Augusta, who, poor girl, coloured to the eyes.

“Quite so, quite so,” said the learned Registrar.  “Well, has Miss Smithers got the will?  Perhaps she will produce it.”

“Miss Smithers is the will,” said Mr. John Short.

“Oh—­I am afraid that I do not quite understand”—­

“To be more precise, Sir, the will is tattooed on Miss Smithers.”

“What?” almost shouted the learned Doctor, literally bounding from his chair.

“The will is tattooed upon Miss Smithers’s back,” continued Mr. John Short, in a perfectly unmoved tone; “and it is now my duty to offer you inspection of the document, and to take your instructions as to how you propose to file it in the Registry”—­

“Inspection of the document—­inspection of the document?” gasped the astonished Doctor; “How am I to inspect the document?”

“I must leave that to you, Sir,” said Mr. John Short, regarding the learned Registrar’s shrinking form with contempt not unmixed with pity.  “The will is on the lady’s back, and I, on behalf of the plaintiff, mean to get a grant with the document annexed.”

Lady Holmhurst began to laugh; and as for the learned Doctor, anything more absurd than he looked, intrenched as he was behind his office chair, with perplexity written on his face, it would be impossible to imagine.