Crawley was fifty, wore a brown wig, the only thing about him that did
not attempt disguise, and slouched in a brown coat and a shirt
peppered with snuff.

In this life he was an infinitesimal attorney. Previously, unless
Pythagoras was a goose, he had been a pole-cat.

Meadows was ambidexter. The two hands he gathered coin with were
Meadows and Crawley. The first his honest, hard-working hand; the
second his three-fingered Jack, his prestidigital hand; with both he
now worked harder than ever. He hurried from business to
business--could not wait to chat, or drink a glass of ale after it; it
was all work! work! work!--money! money! money! with John Meadows,
and everything he touched turned to gold in his hands; yet for all
this burning activity the man's heart had never been so little in
business. His activity was the struggle of a sensible, strong mind to
fight against its one weakness.

"Cedit amor rebus; res age tutus eris," is a very wise saying, and
Meadows, by his own observation and instinct, sought the best antidote
for love.

But the Latins had another true saying, that "nobody is wise at all
hours."

After his day of toil and success he used to be guilty of a sad
inconsistency. He shut himself up at home for two hours, and smoked
his pipe, and ran his eye over the newspaper, but his mind over Susan
Merton.