The office in La Salle Street was in an old-fashioned building, with heavily ornamented front. The room was large, high of ceiling, with a grate and a marble mantlepiece. It was on the first floor, after the short flight of iron steps leading from the pavement. Once it had been active with business, but now few clients found their way into its dingy precincts. Occasionally some old-timer would come in, but upon seeing Howard or Bodney, faces offensively young to him, would go out again, sighing over the degeneracy of the day. The young men had often advised a change of quarters, apartments in a steel building, but the Judge would not consent. The old room was sentiment’s heritage. Many a famous man had trod the rough carpet on the floor; many a time had the dry eye of the tired lawyer watered at the wit of Emery Storrs; and Ingersoll, warm with fellowship and wine, walking up and down, had poured out the overflow of his magic brain. How intellectual were its surroundings then, and now how different! The great advocate was gone, and in his stead sat the real-estate lawyer, emotionless, keen-eyed, searching out the pedigree of a title to a few feet of soil—narrow, direct, dyspeptic, money-dwarfed. After leaving home, Howard went straightway to the down-town office, and there, amid the dust raised by the negro who was sweeping, he found Goyle, waiting for Bodney. "I have taken possession," said Goyle. "All right. And you are taking more dust than is good for you." "I don’t mind that. Where is Bodney?" "He hadn’t got up when I left home. He was up all night with a sick friend, I believe, and is not likely to be down before the afternoon." Goyle looked at his watch. "I will come in again about three o’clock. How is business with you?" He did not get up. "The business of waiting is good. It is about all a young lawyer need expect." Howard sat down, telling the negro to leave off sweeping; and Goyle, leaning back, put his feet upon the window ledge. He was never in haste to leave. It was one of his sayings that he was looking for a soft seat, and he appeared now to have found one. He gazed out into the rumbling thoroughfare, at men of all ages passing one another, pushing, jamming, limping, some on crutches, some tottering, some strong of limb, all with eager faces. "Rushing after the dollar," said Goyle. "Or fleeing from necessity," replied Howard.