Transome, as a descendant of the
Durfey-Transomes. It is a natural subject of self-congratulation to a man, when
special knowledge, gained long ago without any forecast, turns out to afford a
special inspiration in the present; and Johnson felt a new pleasure in the
consciousness that he of all people in the world next to Jermyn had the most
intimate knowledge of the Transome affairs. Still better - some of these affairs
were secrets of Jermyn's. If in an uncomplimentary spirit he might have been
called Jermyn's man of straw, it was a satisfaction to know that the unreality
of the man John Johnson was confined to his appearance in annuity deeds, and
that elsewhere he was solid, locomotive, and capable of remembering anything for
his own pleasure and benefit. To act with doubleness towards a man whose own
conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that it deserved to be
called by no meaner name than diplomacy.
    By such causes it came to pass that Christian held in his hands a bill in
which Jermyn was playfully alluded to as Mr German Cozen, who won games by
clever shuffling and odd tricks without any honour, and backed Durfey's crib
against Bycliffe, - in which it was adroitly implied that the so-called head of
the Transomes was only the tail of the Durfeys, - and that some said the Durfeys
would have died out and left their nest empty if it had not been for their
German Cozen.
    Johnson had not dared to use any recollections except such as might credibly
exist in other minds besides his own. In the truth of the case, no one but
himself had the prompting to recall these outworn scandals; but it was likely
enough that such foul-winged things should be revived by election heats for
Johnson to escape all suspicion.
    Christian could gather only dim and uncertain inferences from this flat
irony and heavy joking; but one chief thing was clear to him. He had been right
in his conjecture that Jermyn's interest about Bycliffe had its source in some
claim of Bycliffe's on the Transome property. And then, there was that story of
the old bill-sticker's, which, closely considered, indicated that the right of
the present Transomes depended, or at least had depended, on the continuance of
some other lives. Christian in his time had gathered enough legal notions to be
aware that possession by one man sometimes depended on the life of another; that
a man might sell his own interest in property, and the interest of his
descendants, while a claim on that property would still remain to