“Not a shilling.  The wonder is that they should have got three hundred thousand pounds.  They never would have had it unless the squire had wished to pave the way back for Mountjoy.  And then he made Augustus do it for him!  In my mind he has been so clever that he ought to be forgiven all his rascality.  There has been, too, no punishment for him, and no probability of punishment.  He has done nothing for which the law can touch him.  He has proposed to cheat people, but before he would have cheated them he might be dead.  The money-lenders will have been swindled awfully, but they have never had any ground of tangible complaint against him.  ‘Who are you?’ he has said.  ‘I don’t know you.’  They alleged that they had lent their money to his eldest son.  ’That’s as you thought,’ he replied.  ’I ain’t bound to come and tell you all the family arrangements about my marriage.’  If you look at it all round it was uncommonly well done.”

When Mr. Barry got back he found that it was generally admitted at the Chambers that the business had been well done.  Everybody was prepared to allow that Mr. Scarborough had not left a screw loose in the arrangement,—­though he was this moment on his death-bed, and had been under surgical tortures and operations, and, in fact, slowly dying, during the whole period that he had been thus busy.  Every one concerned in the matter seemed to admire Mr. Scarborough except Mr. Grey, whose anger, either with himself or his client, became the stronger the louder grew the admiration of the world.

A couple of barristers very learned in the law were consulted, and they gave it as their opinion that from the evidence as shown to them there could be no doubt but that Mountjoy was legitimate.  There was no reason in the least for doubting it, but for that strange episode which had occurred when, in order to get the better of the law, Mr. Scarborough had declared that at the time of Mountjoy’s birth he had not been married.  They went on to declare that on the squire’s death the Rummelsburg marriage must of course have been discovered, and had given it as their opinion that the squire had never dreamed of doing so great an injustice either to his elder or his younger son.  He had simply desired, as they thought, to cheat the money-lenders, and had cheated them beautifully.  That Mr. Tyrrwhit should have been so very soft was a marvel to them; but it only showed how very foolish a sharp man of the world might be when he encountered one sharper.

And Augustus, through an attorney acting on his own behalf, consulted two other barristers, whose joint opinion was not forthcoming quite at once, but may have to be stated.  Augustus was declared by them to have received at his father’s hands a most irreparable injury to such an extent that an action for damages would, in their opinion, lie.