‘Come in, Mr. Bommaney,’ he said. ‘Come in, sir. I have sent home all the clerks, and was just about to lock up for the night. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Let me light the gas.’ Bommaney, the door being closed behind him, stumbled along the darkened passage after the more assured and accustomed steps of young Mr. Barter, and the inner office being gained, and the gas being lighted, allowed himself to be motioned to a chair. What with having been too much agitated by the contemplation of his troubles to be able to eat at all that day, and what with the fight he had had with his temptations, and the too frequent applications he had made to the brandy, it happened that for the moment he was by no means certain of his purpose. He sat for a little while wondering rather hazily what had brought him there. As often happens with absent-minded people, his hands remembered what had been required of them before his brain began to act again, and by and by the fact that he had unbuttoned his overcoat, and had taken a bundle of papers from his pocket, recalled him to his purpose. ‘I wanted,’ he said, emerging from his haze, and holding the bundle of papers nervously in both hands, ‘I wanted to see your father upon very special and urgent business.’ ‘My father?’ the young man answered, with a look and accent of pained surprise. ‘Do you mean to say, sir, that you haven’t heard the news?’ ‘The news?’ cried Bommaney, feeling blindly as if some new misfortune threatened him. ‘What news?’ ‘My father, sir,’ said young Mr. Barter, with a certain blending of professional airs, something of a legal impress mingled with something of the manner of a medical man conveying mournful intelligence to the relatives of a patient, ‘my father, sir, was struck down by an omnibus in the street this morning. He is terribly injured, and not expected to recover.’