Always remember… that when you go into an attorney’s office door, you will have to pay for it, first or last.

The remark is a wry, cautionary observation about the economic realities of legal help: once you involve a lawyer, costs are inevitable—either immediately (“first”) through fees and retainers, or later (“last”) through prolonged proceedings, settlements, or the downstream consequences of litigation. In Trollope’s world of Victorian institutions and social maneuvering, attorneys often appear as necessary intermediaries who translate private disputes into formal processes that can be slow and expensive. The quote also hints at a broader skepticism about professionalized systems: entering the legal sphere can shift control away from the individual and toward procedures that generate costs of their own.