Читать онлайн
Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 2
Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 2
CHAPTER I
"The Attorney-General did his work very fairly, I thought—eh, Lynx?" said Mr. Subtle, as arm-in-arm with Mr. Lynx, he quitted the Castle-gates, each of them on his way to their respective lodgings, to prepare for the next day's work.
"Yes—he's a keen hand, to be sure: he's given us all work enough; and I must say, it's been a capital set-to between you! I'm very glad you got the verdict!"
"It wouldn't have done to be beaten on one's own dung-hill, as it were—eh? By the way, Lynx, that was a good hit of yours about the erasure—I ought, really, if it had occurred to me at the time, to have given you the credit of it—'twas entirely yours, Lynx, I must say."
"Oh, no!"—replied Lynx, modestly. "It was a mere accident my lighting on it; the merit was, the use you made of it!"
"To think of ten thousand a-year turning on that same trumpery erasure!"–
"But are you sure of our verdict on that ground, Mr. Subtle? Do you think Lord Widdrington was right in rejecting that deed?"1
"Right? to be sure he was! But I own I got rather uneasy at the way the Attorney-General put it—that the estate had once been vested, and could not be subsequently de-vested by an alteration or blemish in the instrument evidencing the passing of the estate—eh? that was a good point, Lynx."
"Ay, but as Lord Widdrington put it—that could be only where the defect was proved to exist after a complete and valid deed had been once established."
"True—true; that's the answer, Lynx; here, you see, the deed is disgraced in the first instance; no proof, in fact, that it ever was a deed—therefore, mere waste paper."
"To be sure, possession has gone along with the deed"–