“But the mere truth won’t do,” rejoined my guardian.
“Won’t it indeed, sir? Rather a bad lookout for me!” Mr. George good-humouredly observed.
“You must have a lawyer,” pursued my guardian. “We must engage a good one for you.”
“I ask your pardon, sir,” said Mr. George with a step backward. “I am equally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything of that sort.”
“You won’t have a lawyer?”
“No, sir.” Mr. George shook his head in the most emphatic manner. “I thank you all the same, sir, but—no lawyer!”
“Why not?”
“I don’t take kindly to the breed,” said Mr. George. “Gridley didn’t. And—if you’ll excuse my saying so much—I should hardly have thought you did yourself, sir.”
“That’s equity,” my guardian explained, a little at a loss; “that’s equity, George.”
“Is it, indeed, sir?” returned the trooper in his offhand manner. “I am not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general way I object to the breed.”
Unfolding his arms and changing his position, he stood with one massive hand upon the table and the other on his hip, as complete a picture of a man who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever I saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well with his bluff