Filled with every fraternal and complacent feeling, Jools and his distinguished compatriot bowed smilingly, and with a profound regard for the solicitor and the advocate, retired, in opposite directions, to those spheres of activity in which there was none to dispute their supremacy. VI A PROPHECY “And now,” said the solicitor, “as the decks are clear, let me say this is a rather odd affair which has sent me hungry about the streets of London at an unpleasant hour.” “Am I not surprisingly cool about it?” said Northcote, with a flushed face, balancing his empty wine-glass on the handle of a knife, “considering that this business of yours is destined to mark the turning-point in my career.” “When a man begins to talk of his career,” said the solicitor, “it is safe to infer that he has taken the wrong quantity of liquor. Waiter!” “Sare?” “Tell Jools we want another pint of this filthy stuff--this what-do-you-call-it?--with which he is poisoning us. And, Alphonse, have a couple of Welsh rarebits ready by the time we want them.” The waiter withdrew, walking delicately; and the solicitor bent across the table towards his companion in a manner of confidential gravity. “Correct me if I am wrong,” said he, “but you have done no circuit work?” “Hitherto I have not soared beyond a police-court,” said the young man, with perfect frankness. “And even there I have only made a public display of my incapacity on half a dozen occasions.” “A beginner one might say, yet an ambitious one.” “Where do you get the ambition from?” “It is in the color of your eyes. Besides, have you not a habit of turning your phrases?” “If I did not know you to be a connoisseur in men of promise I should not be convinced.” “That’s my foible, right enough,” said the solicitor, with a laugh. “A connoisseur in men of promise. Samuel Whitcomb owes his own reputation to that, and he is proud to believe that the reputations of half a score of those who are in every way his superiors are to be traced to that source.” “Laying aside the question of superiority, all the world knows it.” “I gave Finnemore Jones his first brief,” said the solicitor, immodestly. “I provided Cooper, Howard, and Harrington with the opportunities that made them famous.” “And above all,” said the young advocate, measuring with a stealthy eye the man before him, “are you not the discoverer of Michael Tobin?” “Ha!” cried the solicitor, as he brought his fist upon the table with an air of unmistakable triumph, “I was holding that back.” “As the crown of your achievement?” “Yes; Michael Tobin is almost here. But how do you come to suspect it, when at present his quality is only known to the few?” “I am one of them,” said Northcote, looking his companion imperturbably in the eyes. Such a cool affirmation seemed to delight the solicitor.