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pens that I shall have the pleasure of such a pretty travelling
companion tomorrow.’
‘He’s always at law business,’ said Mrs. Tinker, taking up
the pot of porter.
‘Drink and drink about,’ said the Baronet. ‘Yes; my dear,
Tinker is quite right: I’ve lost and won more lawsuits than
any man in England. Look here at Crawley, Bart. v. Snaffle.
I’ll throw him over, or my name’s not Pitt Crawley. Podder
and another versus Crawley, Bart. Overseers of Snaily par-
ish against Crawley, Bart. They can’t prove it’s common: I’ll
defy ‘em; the land’s mine. It no more belongs to the parish
than it does to you or Tinker here. I’ll beat ‘em, if it cost
me a thousand guineas. Look over the papers; you may if
you like, my dear. Do you write a good hand? I’ll make you
useful when we’re at Queen’s Crawley, depend on it, Miss
Sharp. Now the dowager’s dead I want some one.’
‘She was as bad as he,’ said Tinker. ‘She took the law of
every one of her tradesmen; and turned away forty-eight
footmen in four year.’
‘She was close—very close,’ said the Baronet, simply; ‘but
she was a valyble woman to me, and saved me a steward.’—
And in this confidential strain, and much to the amusement
of the new-comer, the conversation continued for a consid-
erable time. Whatever Sir Pitt Crawley’s qualities might be,
good or bad, he did not make the least disguise of them.
He talked of himself incessantly, sometimes in the coars-
est and vulgarest Hampshire accent; sometimes adopting
the tone of a man of the world. And so, with injunctions to
Miss Sharp to be ready at five in the morning, he bade her

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