Slossons, those crack solicitors, like the crack nerve specialists in
Harley Street and the crack fortune-tellers in Bond Street, sold their
invisible, inodorous and intangible wares of advice at double, treble,
or decuple their worth, according to the psychology of the
customer. They were great bullies. And they were, further, great
money-lenders--on behalf of their wealthier clients. In obedience to a
convenient theory that it is imprudent to leave money too long in one
place, they were continually calling in mortgages, and re-lending the
sums so collected on fresh investments, thus achieving two bills of
costs on each transaction, and sometimes three, besides employing an
army of valuers, surveyors and mortgage-insurance brokers. In short,
Slossons had nothing to learn about the art of self-enrichment.
Three vast motor-cars waited in front of their ancient door, and
Edward Henry's hired electric vehicle was diminished to a trifle.
He began by demanding the senior partner, who was denied to him by
an old clerk with a face like a stone wall. Only his brutal Midland
insistence, and the mention of the important letter which he had
written to the firm in the middle of the night, saved him from the
ignominy of seeing no partner at all. At the end of the descending
ladder of partners he clung desperately to Mr. Vulto, and he saw Mr.
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