"Tell me what hotel you propose to stop at, and I will call upon you at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning." "I don't know much about the New York hotels." "Then let me recommend a house," naming a comfortable but not expensive hostelry on upper Broadway. "I will go there." "I think you have not yet mentioned your name." "My name is Ephraim Paulding." Bolton noted it down in his memorandum-book, and soon after the train ran into the station at Forty-second Street. There was no time to be lost. Bolton made inquiries and obtained the name of a successful, go-ahead lawyer, having an office at 182 Nassau Street. He did not wait till the next day, but made a call that same evening at his house on Lexington Avenue. Mr. Norcross, the lawyer, entered the parlor with Bolton's card in his hand and a puzzled expression on his face. "Have I ever met you before, Mr. Bolton?" he asked. "No, sir." "Please state your business." "I should like to enter your office. I am a lawyer with fifteen years experience." "I should hardly think so, considering the strange, and I may say unprecedented, proposal you are making." "I am quite aware that it seems so, but I can make it worth your while." "How?" "By bringing you business. I can put in your hands now a will case involving an estate of fifty thousand dollars, and further on probably a much more important case." "You seem to be a hustler." "I am." "Where has your professional life been spent?" asked Norcross. "At Elmira. Now I wish to remove to this city. It will give me a larger and more profitable field." "Give me some idea of the case you say you can put in my hands." Bolton did so. His terse and crisp statement--for he was really a man of ability--interested the lawyer, and disposed him favorably toward the matter. The result of the interview was that he engaged Bolton at a small salary and a commission on business brought to the office for a period of three months. "Thank you," said Bolton, as he rose to go. "You will not regret this step." The next morning Bolton brought his rail road acquaintance to the office, and Mr. Norcross formally undertook his case. "I think we shall win," he said. "It is an aggravated case of undue influence. Mr. Bolton will from time to time communicate to you the steps we have taken." It is unnecessary to go into details. It is enough to say that the will was broken, and a goodly sum found its way to the coffers of lawyer Norcross. By this time Benjamin Bolton had established himself in the favor of his employer, who, at the end of three months, made a new and much more advantageous arrangement. Bolton had not as yet taken any steps in Ernest's case, but he now felt that the time had come to do so. He wrote to the postmaster at Oak Forks, inquiring if he knew a boy named Ernest Ray, but learned, in reply, that Ernest had left the place some months before, and had not since been heard from. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE RESULT OF AN ADVERTISEMENT.