The chambers suited Theodore, first because they were cheap, and next because the sitting-room, which was at the back, commanded a good view of the river. The bedroom was a tolerable size, and there was a dressing-room just big enough to hold bath and boots. He furnished the rooms comfortably, with solid old-fashioned furniture, partly consisting of surplus articles sent from the old house in Dorchester, and partly of his own purchases in London. The rooms were arranged with a sober taste which was by no means inartistic, and there was just enough bright colouring in the Algerian portières and a few handsome pieces of Oriental crockery to relieve the dark tones of old oak and Spanish mahogany. Altogether the chambers had the established look of a nest which was meant to last through wind and weather, a shelter in which a man expected to spend a good many years of his life. He had another reason for choosing those old rooms in Ferret Court in preference to chambers in any of those new and commodious houses in the courts that had been rebuilt of late years. It was in this house that James Dalbrook had begun his legal career; it was here, on the ground floor, that the future Lord Cheriton had waited for briefs nearly forty years ago; and it was here that fame and fortune had first visited him, a shining apparition, bringing brightness into the shabby old rooms, irradiating the gloomy old court with the glory of triumphant ambition, hopes suddenly realized, the consciousness of victory. James Dalbrook had occupied those dingy chambers fifteen years, and long after he became a great man, and he had gone from them almost reluctantly to a spacious first-floor in King’s Bench Walk. He had enjoyed the reputation of a miser at that period of his life. He was never known to give a dinner to a friend; he lived in a close retirement which his enemies stigmatized as a hole-and-corner life; he was never seen at places of amusement; he never played cards, or bet upon a race. Socially he was unpopular. Theodore had taken all the preliminary steps, and had arranged to read with a well-known special pleader. He was thoroughly in earnest in his determination to succeed in this new line. He wanted to prove to his father that his abandonment of the Dorchester office was neither a caprice nor a folly. He was even more in earnest in his desire to keep his promise to his cousin Juanita. Almost his first act upon arriving in London had been to go to Scotland Yard in the hope of finding the detective who had been sent to Cheriton, and his inquiries there were so far successful that he was able to make an appointment with Mr. Churton for the next day but one.