The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 335: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE TWO NOBLEMEN 301 returned Florimel. “ And how progresses the law- suit? ”’ ‘“ Favourably enough, I think, and, indeed, I hope,” observed Lord Montgomery. ‘‘ Heaven knows it is pretty nearly time that it should be decided in one way or another, considering that it has now lasted no less than thirty years.”’ ‘ But how, in the name of common sense, can it have been thus protracted? ’”’ demanded Lord Florimel. ‘In the first place, my dear friend,’’ responded Montgom- ery, ‘ every one knows that it is much more easy to get into Chancery than to get out of it. A more infamous tribunal never disgraced civilization, the Inquisition perhaps being alone excepted. Well, then, the delays of that accursed court have been the prominent and inevitable enemies against which we have had to contend. In the second place, there has been an almost endless trouble in settling the precise manner in which the suits were to be carried on; because there were numerous old wills to consult, pedigrees to examine, marriage settlements to rake up, certificates of birth to find, and registers of burial to ferret out, before it could be established who ought to be the exact claimants.” | “ But I thought that the suits were renewed, after a temporary suspension, by your mother on behalf of your- self and your brother Raymond, when you were both boys? ”’ said Lord Florimel, inquiringly. ‘‘ Your surmise is substantially correct, my dear friend,’’ returned Lord Montgomery. ‘‘ The process was originally commenced by my father, thirty years ago, which was just about the time of my birth. My brother Raymond was born eight years later.”’ ‘What! is he only twenty-two at this moment?” ex- claimed Florimel. ‘‘ I thought he was at least a couple of years older; but then my acquaintance with him is very slight.” ‘‘ Well, as I was observing,”’ continued Lord Montgomery, hastily resuming the thread of his narrative, and not paus- ing to notice Florimel’s remarks, “‘ the suit had lasted eight years when my brother Raymond was born; and almost at the same time my father died. Then it was discovered that by some traditionary privilege or peculiarity of entail, the claim to the Warwickshire estates had become vested in (C(O) mG } KS \