That abysm of legal dubieties, the office of Mr. Keelevin, the writer, consisted of two obscure apartments on the ground floor of M’Gregor’s Land, in M’Whinnie’s Close, in the Gallowgate. The outer room was appropriated to the clerks, and the inner for the darker mysteries of consultation. To this place Claud repaired on the day following the interesting communication, of which we have recorded the first impressions in the foregoing chapter. He had ordered breakfast to be ready an hour earlier than usual; and as soon as he had finished it, he went to his scrutoire, and taking out his title-deeds, put them in his pocket, and without saying any thing to his wife of what he intended to do, lifted his hat and stick from their accustomed place of repose, in the corner of the dining-room, and proceeded, as we have said, to consult Mr. Keelevin. It is not the universal opinion of mankind, that the profession of the law is favourable to the preservation of simplicity of character or of benevolence of disposition; but this, no doubt, arises from the malice of disappointed clients, who, to shield themselves from the consequences of their own unfair courses, pretend that the wrongs and injustice of which they are either found guilty, or are frustrated in the attempt to effect, are owing to the faults and roguery of their own or their adversaries’ lawyers. But why need we advocate any revision of the sentence pronounced upon the limbs of the law? for, grasping, as they do, the whole concerns and interests of the rest of the community, we think they are sufficiently armed with claws and talons to defend themselves. All, in fact, that we meant by this apologetic insinuation, was to prepare the reader for the introduction of Mr. Keelevin, on whom the corrosive sublimate of a long and thorough professional insight of all kinds of equivocation and chicanery had in no degree deteriorated from the purity of his own unsuspicious and benevolent nature. Indeed, at the very time that Claud called, he was rebuking his young men on account of the cruelty of a contrivance they had made to catch a thief that was in the nocturnal practice of opening the window of their office, to take away what small change they were so negligent as to leave on or in their desks; and they were not only defending themselves, but remonstrating with him for having rendered their contrivance abortive. For, after they had ingeniously constructed a trap within the window, namely, a footless table, over which the thief must necessarily pass to reach their desks, he had secretly placed a pillow under it, in order that, when it fell down, the robber might not hurt himself in the fall. ‘Gude morning, gude morning, Mr. Keelevin; how’re ye the day?’ said Claud, as he entered.