“No, no,” says Vholes. “Don’t say so. We ought to have patience, all of us. Besides, I never disparage, sir. I never disparage.”
“ Mr. Vholes,” returns the angry client. “You know as well as I that he would have strangled the suit if he could.”
“He was not active in it,” Mr. Vholes admits with an appearance of reluctance. “He certainly was not active in it. But however, but however, he might have had amiable intentions. Who can read the heart, Mr. C. !”
“You can,” returns Richard.
“I, Mr. C. ?”
“Well enough to know what his intentions were. Are or are not our interests conflicting? Tell—me—that!” says Richard, accompanying his last three words with three raps on his rock of trust.
“ Mr. C. ,” returns Vholes, immovable in attitude and never winking his hungry eyes, “I should be wanting in my duty as your professional adviser, I should be departing from my fidelity to your interests, if I represented those interests as identical with the interests of Mr. Jarndyce. They are no such thing, sir. I never impute motives; I both have and am a father, and I never impute motives. But I must not shrink from a professional duty, even if it sows dissensions in families. I understand you to be now consulting me professionally as to your interests? You are so? I reply, then, they are not identical with those of Mr. Jarndyce.”
“Of course they are not!” cries Richard. “You found that out long ago.”
“ Mr. C. ,” returns Vholes, “I wish to say no more of any third party than is necessary. I wish to leave my good name unsullied, together with any little property of which I may become possessed through industry and perseverance, to my daughters Emma, Jane, and Caroline. I also desire to live in amity with my professional brethren. When Mr. Skimpole did me