“Your lawyer, Mr. Boffin,” returned Lightwood, making a very short note of it with a very rusty pen, “has the gratification of taking the instruction. There is another?”

“There is just one other, and no more. Make me as compact a little will as can be reconciled with tightness, leaving the whole of the property to ‘my beloved wife, Henerietty Boffin, sole executrix.’ Make it as short as you can, using those words; but make it tight.”

At some loss to fathom Mr. Boffin’s notions of a tight will, Lightwood felt his way.

“I beg your pardon, but professional profundity must be exact. When you say tight⁠—”

“I mean tight,” Mr. Boffin explained.