“Please, sir, the gentleman—rather a foreign looking party—says he must see you. He’d rather not give his name, but he’s uncommon positive.”

So said Gubbins, my clerk, holding the door ajar, and peering in, with a deprecatory expression on his sallow face.

“Tell him, Gubbins, that I am engaged, very particularly engaged. He must call again, or write, for I am busy now. You can shut the door,” answered I, somewhat testily. For I really was engaged, and I had been so short a time in real practice as a Chancery barrister, that the work I was deep in had the charm of novelty. I was half smothered in parchments, folios, and sheets of draught paper, ploughing my way through a most difficult abstract of title, which Neeld and Fusby, of Southampton Row, were clamorous for. Gubbins, the most obedient of clerks, did his best to comply with my commands, but a scuffle succeeded, open flew the inner door of my chambers, and in burst a wild hairy Orson of a man, in very loose clothes, and with a tremendous beard masking the lower part of his face.

“Really, sir, I must say—” I began, rising in wrath from my padded chair.