He advertised, somewhat in the following terms: “Private Secretary wanted by a gentleman of means. Good salary offered to one willing to devote himself wholly to the interests of his employer. Address, in the first instance--” here followed the number of a house in Victoria Street, a suite of rooms in which Gilead had already furnished and turned into a central bureau for his operations. The result gave him food for thought. He received seven hundred and forty-nine replies, one hundred and sixty-eight of which were delivered on the date of the advertisement. He recognized at once his single incapacity for dealing with that vast stack of correspondence, and put on his hat and went to see Mr Plover in Arundel Street. Mr Plover’s appearance and expression needed, perhaps, the assurance of his firm’s time-honoured reputation to make them convincing. He was a slack-lipped, beautifully white-whiskered old gentleman, wearing gold-rimmed pince-nez, which, being near the tip of his nose, were wont occasionally to topple over and get in the way of his speech. One had to put some force upon oneself to read legal profundity in features which seemed to betray even an excess of amiable vacuity. But one knew that the antiquity of the firm and its weighty connexions stood behind, and so one resigned oneself, like Longfellow’s good Christian, to a pious confidence in the things which “are not what they seem.” Mr Plover applied to the difficulties of this immensely important new client that Napoleonic method which resolves all complexities by annihilation. “Seven hundred and forty-nine!” said he. “Dear, dear! Now, take my advice, and make a bonfire of the lot, and start afresh.” “Would that be fair?” said Gilead. “Only one can succeed, you know,” said Mr Plover. “Make it the seven hundred and fiftieth.” He sat back in his chair, tilted his head, and his glasses lost their balance. “Seven hundred and fiftieth,” he mumbled crookedly behind their lenses. “Yes?” said Gilead, calmly inquisitorial. “I venture to think I know the very man for your purpose,” said Mr Plover, smiling, with the glasses in place once more. “Yes?” said Gilead again. “His name is Nestle,” said the lawyer--“Herbert Nestle. He is a man of immense industry and capacity, and at present out of a situation.” “What was his last?” asked the client. “He was conveyancing clerk,” said Mr Plover, “to Broker and Borrodaile, since in liquidation. There was some question of trust funds, and Nestle was scandalously misused. A man with clean hands--he has my strong personal recommendation, Mr Balm, if that counts for anything with you.” “It settles a difficulty,” said Gilead, rising. He left Mr Plover preparing to draw out and sign several folio pages of cheques, a task, deputed to him by his partners, which he greatly enjoyed, and executed with the minutest care and precision, ruling all the cross lines. CHAPTER I. THE QUEST OF THE SLEEPING BEAUTY