“Personage, eh?” said the solicitor. “They’re out of my line. I only have to do with persons, quite ordinary people, who are mightily interested in their meals.” “Well, you see,” said Northcote, “I had hardly got so far as to formulate my expected visitant in actual terms of flesh and blood.” “You deal in spooks!” said the solicitor. “A likely pitch for them, too.” Mr. Whitcomb began to stroke his moustache pensively, his invariable habit when confronted by the danger of going beyond his limit. “A creepy hole, by God!” he said, in another of his asides, for the simplicity and matter-of-fact of the advocate had a little discomposed him. “I was half-expecting a genie,” said the advocate. “A genie!” said the solicitor, with a laugh of embarrassment, for his surroundings oppressed him, and his vitality was impaired by not having yet had his dinner. “I never heard of a genie except in the ‘Arabian Nights.’” “They abound in London,” said the advocate. “They are all about us.” “You are right, I dare say,” said the solicitor, with a puzzled air. “The latest discovery of science, is it? They have found such marvellous things lately, even in the water we drink and the air we breathe. But if you will just stick on your hat, and do me the honor of eating a bite of supper,--I have had a deplorable day, which has ended by robbing me of my dinner,--I will talk to you of the business that has brought me here at such an odd sort of hour.” “A bite of supper!” These magic words caused the advocate to enfold his visitor in a melancholy smile. “Upon my soul,” said he, “you are the genie.” The solicitor gave a laugh as ponderous as Gargantua’s. “Have it your own way,” he said; “but for the love of heaven put on your hat and let us heed the intimations of Nature. Perhaps if we pet her a little she may do us well in this somewhat remarkable affair. Come, let us away.” That robustness of bearing which made half the stock in trade of the first criminal lawyer in London had already an effect upon the advocate. Those luscious tones had dispelled his comatose condition. And who should say, after all, that this was not the genie; at least, here was the living embodiment of success, that jovial and gigantic swaggerer. What a smugness and sagacity were in the heavy inflections of this prosperous man! “A fellow is not fit to pare his own nails when he’s sharp-set, and I had my chop at a quarter-past one,” he chuckled, as he watched the advocate grappling with his boots. “Now, on with your hat, and we’ll take a cab to I know where.” “As you will,” said the young man, reaching for his hat. A reaction was stealing along his veins. Already his passionate despair had begun to cower. It looked like wizardry that one so famous should have been borne in person, dinnerless, at ten o’clock at night, up flight after flight of dark stairs, to the crazy fifth floor of that decrepit building in quest of one so poor and so obscure.