We all conceived a prepossession in his favour; for there was a sterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice, and in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word he spoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go off like blank cannons and hurt nothing. But we were hardly prepared to have it so confirmed by his appearance, when Mr Jarndyce presented him. He was not only a very handsome old gentleman — upright and stalwart as he had been described to us — with a massive grey head, a fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become corpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but for the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to assist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so chivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much sweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing to hide, but showed himself exactly as he was — incapable (as Richard said) of anything on a limited scale, and firing away with those blank great guns, because he carried no small arms whatever — that really I could not help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat at dinner, whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led by Mr Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up his head like a blood- hound, and gave out that tremendous Ha, ha, ha!

“You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?” said Mr Jarndyce.

“By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!” replied the other. “He is the most wonderful creature! I wouldn’t take ten thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole support, in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment, a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most astonishing birds that ever lived!”

The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so tame that he was brought down by Mr Boythorn’s man, on his forefinger, and, after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted on his master’s head. To hear Mr Boythorn presently expressing the most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good illustration of his character, I thought.

“By my soul, Jarndyce,” he said, very gently holding up a bit of bread to the canary to peck at, “if I were in your place, I would seize every Master in Chancery by the throat to-morrow morning, and shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets, and his bones rattled in his skin. I would have a settlement out of somebody, by fair means or by foul. If you would empower me to do it, I would do it for you with the greatest satisfaction!” (All this time, the very small canary was eating out of his hand.)

“I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at present,” returned Mr Jarndyce, laughing, “that it would be greatly advanced, even by the legal process of shaking the bench and the whole bar.”

“There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery, on the face of the earth!” said Mr Boythorn. “Nothing but a mine below it on a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and precedents collected in it, and every functionary belonging to it also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the Accountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to atoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it in the least!”

It was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which he recommended this strong measure of reform. When we laughed, he threw up his head and shook his broad chest, and again the whole country seemed to echo to his Ha, ha, ha! It had not the least effect in disturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete; and who hopped about the table with its quick head now on this side and now on that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master, as if he were no more than another bird.

“But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right of way?” said Mr Jarndyce. “You are not free from the toils of the law yourself!”