The man who had stopped him was about eight-and-twenty; he was tall and thin, his legs were too long and very rickety. To look at he was not prepossessing; he had a pinky complexion, pale reddish hair, and small round dark eyes with light lashes and weak lids. On either side of his face there were some straggling whiskers; his lips were thin and his whole expression very grave. His voice was low but firm in its tone, as though he wished to convey that even in small matters it would be useless to contradict him. He wore rather shabby dark clothes, his thin overcoat was unbuttoned and showed that the undercoat was faced with watered silk that had worn a little shiny; attached to his waistcoat was a watchguard made of brown hair ornamented here and there with bright gold clasps. He did not look strong or very flourishing. He was fairly gentleman-like, but only fairly so, and he did not look very agreeable. The apparent weakness of his legs seemed to prevent him from walking uprightly; he looked down a good deal at the toes of his boots, which were well polished. The oddest thing about him was that with all his unprepossessing appearance he had a certain air of sentiment; occasionally a sentimental tone stole into his voice, but he carefully repressed it. Walter remembered the moment he looked at him that the brown hair watchguard had been the gift of a pretty girl, the daughter of a tailor to whom he had made love as if in compensation for not paying her father’s bill. He wondered how it had ended, whether the girl had broken her heart for him, or found him out. But the next moment he hated himself for his ungenerous thoughts, and forcing them back spoke in as friendly a voice as he could manage. “It’s ages since we came across each other,” he said, “and I should not have seen you just now if you had not seen me.” “I wasn’t sure whether you would speak to me,” Mr. Wimple said solemnly, as they walked on together, and then almost hurriedly, as if to avoid thinking about unpleasant things, he asked, “How is your wife?” “All right, thank you. But how are you, and how are you getting on?” “I am not at all well, Walter”—Mr. Wimple coughed, as if to show that he was delicate—“and my uncle has behaved shamefully to me.” “Why, what has he done?” Walter asked, wishing that he felt more cordial, for he had known Alfred Wimple longer almost than he had known any one. Old acquaintance was not to be lightly put aside. It constituted a claim in Walter’s eyes as strong as did relationship, though it was only when the claim was made on him, and never when he might have pressed it for his own advantage, that he remembered it. “Done! Why, he has turned me out of his office, just because he wanted to make room for the son of a rich client, for nothing else in the world.” “That was rough,” Walter answered, thinking almost against his will that Wimple had never been very accurate and that this account was possibly not a fair one. “What excuse did he make?”