RANKIN. Is such a thing possible to-day in the British Empire?

SIR HOWARD (calmly). Oh, quite. Quite.

LADY CICELY. But could not a firstrate solicitor have been sent
out from London?

SIR HOWARD. No doubt, by paying him enough to compensate him for
giving up his London practice: that is, rather more than there
was any reasonable likelihood of the estate proving worth.

RANKIN. Then the estate was lost?

SIR HOWARD. Not permanently. It is in my hands at present.

RANKIN. Then how did ye get it back?

SIR HOWARD (with crafty enjoyment of his own cunning). By
hoisting the rogue with his own petard. I had to leave matters as
they were for many years; for I had my own position in the world
to make. But at last I made it. In the course of a holiday trip
to the West Indies, I found that this dishonest agent had left
the island, and placed the estate in the hands of an agent of his
own, whom he was foolish enough to pay very badly. I put the case
before that agent; and he decided to treat the estate as my
property. The robber now found himself in exactly the same
position he had formerly forced me into. Nobody in the island
would act against me, least of all the Attorney and Solicitor
General, who appreciated my influence at the Colonial Office. And
so I got the estate back. "The mills of the gods grind slowly,"