siderable in size, and required attention in mastication. Then the remaining gravy had to be picked up on the blade of the knife, and the particles of pickles collected and disposed of by the same process. But when all this had been well done, Moulder replied—
'That may be your opinion, Mr. Dockwrath, and I dare say you may know what you're about.'
'Well; I rather think I do, Mr. Moulder.'
'Mine's different. Now when one gentleman thinks one thing and another thinks another, there's nothing for it in my mind but for each gentleman to back his own. That's about the ticket in this country, I believe.'
'That's just as a gentleman may feel disposed,' said Dockwrath.
'No it aint. What's the use of a man having an opinion if he won't back it? He's bound to back it, or else he should give way, and confess he aint so sure about it as he said he was. There's no coming to an end if you don't do that. Now there's a ten-pound note,' and Moulder produced that amount of the root of all evil; 'I'll put that in John Kenneby's hands, and do you cover it.' And then he looked as though there were no possible escape from the proposition which he had made.
'I decline to have anything to do with it,' said Kenneby.
'Gammon,' said Moulder; 'two ten-pound notes won't burn a hole in your pocket.'
'Suppose I should be asked a question about it to-morrow; where should I be then?'
'Don't trouble yourself, Mr. Kenneby,' said Dockwrath; 'I'm not going to bet.'
'You aint, aint you?' said Moulder.
'Certainly not, Mr. Moulder. If you understood professional matters a little better, you'd know that a professional gentleman couldn't make a bet as to a case partly in his own hands without very great impropriety.' And Dockwrath gathered himself up, endeavouring to impress a sense of importance on the two witnesses, even should he fail of doing so upon Mr. Moulder.
Moulder repocketed his ten-pound note, and laughed with a long, low chuckle. According to his idea of things, he had altogether got the better of the attorney upon that subject. As he himself put it so plainly, what criterion is there by which a man can test the validity of his own opinion if he be not willing to support it by a bet? A man is bound to do so, or else to give way and apologize. For many years he had insisted upon this in commercial rooms as a fundamental law in the character and conduct of gentlemen, and never yet had anything been said to him to show that in such a theory he was mistaken.
During all this Bridget Bolster sat there much delighted. It was not necessary to her pleasure that she should say much herself.
