Page 512 - bleak-house

of number, of course, but THEY go everywhere where the
doors stand open.’
‘People don’t come with grudges and schemes of fin-
ishing their practice with live targets, I hope?’ said my
guardian, smiling.
‘Not much of that, sir, though that HAS happened. Mostly
they come for skill—or idleness. Six of one, and half-a-doz-
en of the other. I beg your pardon,’ said Mr. George, sitting
stiffly upright and squaring an elbow on each knee, ‘but I
believe you’re a Chancery suitor, if I have heard correct?’
‘I am sorry to say I am.’
‘I have had one of YOUR compatriots in my time, sir.’
‘A Chancery suitor?’ returned my guardian. ‘How was
that?’
‘Why, the man was so badgered and worried and tor-
tured by being knocked about from post to pillar, and from
pillar to post,’ said Mr. George, ‘that he got out of sorts. I
don’t believe he had any idea of taking aim at anybody, but
he was in that condition of resentment and violence that he
would come and pay for fifty shots and fire away till he was
red hot. One day I said to him when there was nobody by
and he had been talking to me angrily about his wrongs, ‘If
this practice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and good; but I
don’t altogether like your being so bent upon it in your pres-
ent state of mind; I’d rather you took to something else.’ I
was on my guard for a blow, he was that passionate; but he
received it in very good part and left off directly. We shook
hands and struck up a sort of friendship.’
‘What was that man?’ asked my guardian in a new tone

512 Bleak House