Harry Castlemaine, chancing to pass, ran and caught it, and brought it, laughing, to Mr. North. The young men liked each other and were cordial when they met; but they had not advanced to intimacy. Each had his reasons for avoiding it: Harry Castlemaine never chose to become to friendly with any stranger sojourning at Greylands; George North, under his present pseudo aspect, rather shunned the Castlemaines. "It is well heads are not loose, as well as hats, or they'd be gone to-day," said Harry, giving up the hat. "Where's your ribbon?" "It had come unfastened from my buttonhole. Thank you. What a grand sea it is!" "Wonderful. A rare sea, even for Greylands. Good-day." Like a great many more of us, Mr. North sometimes did things upon impulse. As he crossed to the Dolphin, holding Ins hat on his head, the two-horse van came lumbering down the hill by the Nunnery on its way to Stilborough. Impulse--it certainly was not reason--induced George North to get inside and go off with it. In due course of time it conveyed him to Stilborough. "Can you tell me where Mr. Knivett, the advocate, lives?" he asked of the driver when he was paying his fare. "Lawyer Knivett, is it, sir, that you want? He lives close to the market-house, in the centre of the town." "Which is my way to it?" "Go to the end of the street, sir: take the first turning on the left, New Street, and that will bring you into the street where the marketplace is. Anybody will tell you which is Lawyer Knivett's." Just as in the days, some months gone by, poor Anthony had been directed to the lawyer's house, and readily found it, so did the younger brother find it now. The brass-plate on the door, "Mr. Knivett, attorney-at-law," stared him in the face as he halted there. During the dinner-hour, between half-past one and two, this outer door was always shut; an intimation that clients were not wanted to call just then: at other times it was generally, though not invariably, open: impatient clients would often give it a bang behind them in escaping. Mr. North rang the bell, and was admitted to the clerk's room, where a young man, with curled black hair and a nose like a parrot's, sat behind a desk near the window, writing. "Can I see Mr. Knivett?" asked George. The young man stretched his neck forward to take a look at the applicant. "It's not office-hours," said he in answer, his tone superlatively distant. "When will it be office-hours?" "After two o'clock." "Can I see him then--if I wait?" "Well, yes, I suppose you can. There's a chair"--extending the feather-end of his pen to point it out: which caused the diamond ring he wore on his finger to flash in the sunlight.