It was never out of his hand.' I then hinted, that in all probability your fortune was now so easy as to dispense with your prosecuting the law any further than you had done; and therefore you might think you had some title to amuse yourself.

This was the least palatable argument of all.
'If he cannot amuse himself with the law,' said my father, snappishly 'it is the worse for him.

If he needs not law to teach him to make a fortune, I am sure he needs it to teach him how to keep one; and it would better become him to be learning this, than to be scouring the country like a land-louper, going he knows not where, to see he knows not what, and giving treats at Noble House to fools like himself' (an angry glance at poor me), 'Noble House, indeed!' he repeated, with elevated voice and sneering tone, as if there were something offensive to him in the name, though I will venture to say that any place in which you had been extravagant enough to spend five shillings, would have stood as deep in his reprobation.
Mindful of your idea, that my father knows more of your real situation than he thinks proper to mention, I thought I would hazard a fishing observation.

'I did not see,' I said, 'how the Scottish law would be useful to a young gentleman whose fortune would seem to be vested in England.'-- I really thought my father would have beat me.
'D'ye mean to come round me, sir, PER AMBAGES, as Counsellor Pest says?
What is it to you where Darsie Latimer's fortune is vested, or whether he hath any fortune, aye or no?
And what ill would the Scottish law do to him, though he had as much of it as either Stair or Bankton, sir?
Is not the foundation of our municipal law the ancient code of the Roman Empire, devised at a time when it was so much renowned for its civil polity, sir, and wisdom?
Go to your bed, sir, after your expedition to Noble House, and see that your lamp be burning and your book before you ere the sun peeps.

ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS--were it not a sin to call the divine science of the law by the inferior name of art.' So my lamp did burn, dear Darsie, the next morning, though the owner took the risk of a domiciliary visitation, and lay snug in bed, trusting its glimmer might, without further inquiry, be received as sufficient evidence of his vigilance.