, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false
pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good. The
very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched suitors at bay, by protesting
time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle, Mizzle, or otherwise, was particularly
engaged and had appointments until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and
shuffle into themselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause
has acquired a goodly sum of money by it, but has acquired too a distrust of his
own mother, and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle, Mizzle, and otherwise,
have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising themselves that they will look
into that outstanding little matter, and see what can be done for Drizzle - who
was not well used - when Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office.
Shirking and sharking, in all their many varieties, have been sown broadcast by
the ill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history from the
outermost circle of such evil, have been insensibly tempted into a loose way of
letting bad things alone to take their own bad course, and a loose belief that
if the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right.
    Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the Lord
High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
    »Mr. Tangle,« says the Lord High Chancellor, latterly something restless
under the eloquence of that learned gentleman.
    »Mlud,« says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and Jarndyce than
anybody. He is famous for it - supposed never to have read anything else since
he left school.
    »Have you nearly concluded your argument?«
    »Mlud, no - variety of points - feel it my duty tsubmit - ludship,« is the
reply that slides out of Mr. Tangle.
    »Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?« says the
Chancellor, with a slight smile.
    Eighteen of Mr. Tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little summary
of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a pianoforte, make
eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places of obscurity.
    »We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight,« says the
Chancellor. For, the question at issue is only a question of costs, a mere bud
on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come to a settlement one
of these days.
