His memory carried him but little
farther back than the day on which his brother turned him out of his
rooms.
There were, however, many reasons,--and this was put in at the suggestion
of Mr. Barry,--why he would not wish that his brother should be left
penniless. If his brother would be willing to withdraw altogether from
any lawsuit, and would lend his co-operation to a speedy arrangement of
the family matters, a thousand a year,--or twenty-five thousand
pounds,--should be made over to him as a younger brother's portion. To
this offer it would be necessary that a speedy reply should be given,
and, under such circumstances, no temporary income need be supplied.
It was early in June when Augustus was sitting in his luxurious lodgings
in Victoria Street, contemplating this reply. His own lawyer had advised
him to accept the offer, but he had declared to himself a dozen times
since his father's death that, in this matter of the property, he would
"either make a spoon or spoil a horn." And the lawyer was no friend of
his own,--was not a man who knew nothing of the facts of the case beyond
what were told him, and nothing of the working of his client's mind.
Augustus had looked to him only for the law in the matter, and the
lawyer had declared the law to be against his client.
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