Sir Austin put two fingers on the youth’s shoulder, and said, leaning his head a little on one side, in a way habitual to him, “I am glad to find my son’s old comrade thus profitably occupied.  I know what study is myself.  But beware of prosecuting it too excitedly!  Come! you must not be offended at our interruption; you will soon take up the thread again.  Besides, you know, you must get accustomed to the visits of your client.”

So condescending and kindly did this speech sound to Mr. Thompson, that, seeing Ripton still preserve his appearance of disorder and sneaking defiance, he thought fit to nod and frown at the youth, and desired him to inform the baronet what particular part of Blackstone he was absorbed in mastering at that moment.

Ripton hesitated an instant, and blundered out, with dubious articulation, “The Law of Gravelkind.”

“What Law?” said Sir Austin, perplexed.

“Gravelkind,” again rumbled Ripton’s voice.

Sir Austin turned to Mr. Thompson for an explanation.  The old lawyer was shaking his law-box.

“Singular!” he exclaimed.  “He will make that mistake!  What law, sir?”

Ripton read his error in the sternly painful expression of his father’s face, and corrected himself.  “Gavelkind, sir.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Thompson, with a sigh of relief.  “Gravelkind, indeed!  Gavelkind!  An old Kentish”—­He was going to expound, but Sir Austin assured him he knew it, and a very absurd law it was, adding, “I should like to look at your son’s notes, or remarks on the judiciousness of that family arrangement, if he had any.”

“You were making notes, or referring to them, as we entered,” said Mr. Thompson to the sucking lawyer; “a very good plan, which I have always enjoined on you.  Were you not?”

Ripton stammered that he was afraid he hid not any notes to show, worth seeing.

“What were you doing then, sir?”

“Making notes,” muttered Ripton, looking incarnate subterfuge.

“Exhibit!”

Ripton glanced at his desk and then at his father; at Sir Austin, and at the confidential clerk.  He took out his key.  It would not fit the hole.

“Exhibit!” was peremptorily called again.

In his praiseworthy efforts to accommodate the keyhole, Ripton discovered that the desk was already unlocked.  Mr. Thompson marched to it, and held the lid aloft.  A book was lying open within, which Ripton immediately hustled among a mass of papers and tossed into a dark corner, not before the glimpse of a coloured frontispiece was caught by Sir Austin’s eye.

The baronet smiled, and said, “You study Heraldry, too?  Are you fond of the science?”

Ripton replied that he was very fond of it—­extremely attached, and threw a further pile of papers into the dark corner.

The notes had been less conspicuously placed, and the search for them was tedious and vain.  Papers, not legal, or the fruits of study, were found, that made Mr. Thompson more intimate with the condition of his son’s exchequer; nothing in the shape of a remark on the Law of Gavelkind.