The Mammoth Book of Dracula Read Online Free Page A

himself. Bah! What good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and a heart to conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohaes, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys and the Dracula as their heart’s blood, their brains, and their swords, can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace, and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told. But now—I want to ask you questions on legal matters and of the doing of Actuari Kinds of business.
     
    HARKER: I hope I may be able to meet your wishes, and especially as I see so
    many law books here.
     
    DRACULA: First. In England may one have two solicitors, or more than two?
     
    HARKER: You can have a dozen if you wished, but that it would not be wise to
have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as the court would only hear one at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate against your interest.
     
    DRACULA: Would there be any practical difficulty in having one man to attend,
say, to banking, and another to shipping, as if local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking solicitor. I shall illustrate. Your friend and mine, Mr. Peter Hawkins, from under the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far from London, buys for me through your good self my place at London. Good! Now here let me say frankly, lest you should think it strange that I have sought the services of one so far off from London instead of some one resident there, that my motive was that no local interest might be served save my wish only; and as one of London resident might, perhaps, have some purpose of himself or friend to serve, I went thus afield to seek my agent, whose labours should be to my interest only. Now, suppose I, who have much of affairs, wish to ship goods, say, to Newcastle, or Durham, or Harwich, or Dover, might it not be that it could with more ease be done by consigning to one in these ports?
     
    HARKER: Certainly it would be most easy, but we solicitors have a system of
agency one for the other. Local work can be done locally on instruction from any solicitor, so that the client simply placing himself in the hands of one man, can have his wishes carried out by him without further trouble.
     
    DRACULA: But could I be at liberty to direct myself. Is it not so?
     
    HARKER: Of course. Such is often done by men of business, who do not like the
    whole of their affairs to be known by any one person.
     
    DRACULA: Good! Now I must ask about the means of consigning goods and
the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of difficulties which may arise and which by forethought can be guarded against.
     
    HARKER: You would have made a wonderful solicitor, for there is nothing that
you do not think of or foresee. For a man who was never in the country, and who does not evidently do much in the way of business your knowledge is wonderful.
     
    DRACULA: Have you written since you arrived to our friend Mr. Peter Hawkins,
    or to any other?
     
    HARKER: Well, as yet I have not seen any opportunity of sending letters to
    anybody.
     
    DRACULA: Then write now, my young friend, write to our friend and to any
other and say, if it will please you, that you shall stay with me until a month from now.
     
    HARKER: Do you wish me to stay so long?
     
    DRACULA: I desire it much; nay, I will take no refusal. When your master,
employer, what you will, engaged that some one should come on his behalf, it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted. I have not stinted. Is it not so?
     
    HARKER: (Aside) After all, it is Mr. Hawkins’s interest, not mine, and I have to
    think of him, not myself.
     
    DRACULA: I pray you, my good young friend,