e Mountain Cemetery; ran for a term across that rather
windy Olympus of Nob Hill, or perhaps just skirted its frontier; passed
almost immediately after through a stage of little houses, rather
impudently painted, and offering to the eye of the observer this
diagnostic peculiarity, that the huge brass plates upon the small and
highly coloured doors bore only the first names of ladies--Norah or Lily
or Florence; traversed China Town, where it was doubtless undermined
with opium cellars, and its blocks pierced, after the similitude of
rabbit-warrens, with a hundred doors and passages and galleries; enjoyed
a glimpse of high publicity at the corner of Kearney; and proceeded,
among dives and warehouses, towards the City Front and the region of the
water-rats. In this last stage of its career, where it was both grimy
and solitary, and alternately quiet and roaring to the wheels of drays,
we found a certain house of some pretension to neatness, and furnished
with a rustic outside stair. On the pillar of the stair a black
plate bore in gilded lettering this device: "Harry D. Bellairs,
Attorney-at-law. Consultations, 9 to 6." On ascending the stairs, a door
was found to stand open on the balcony, with this further inscription,
"Mr. Bellairs In."

"I wonder what we do next," said I.

"Guess we sail right in," returned Jim, and suited the action to the
word.

The room in which we found ourselves was clean, but extremely bare. A
rather old-fashioned secretaire stood by the wall, with a chair drawn to
the desk; in one corner was a shelf with half-a-dozen law books; and
I can remember literally not another stick of furniture. One inference
imposed itself: Mr. Bellairs was in the habit of sitting down himself
and suffering his clients to stand. At the far end, and veiled by a
curtain of red baize, a second door communicated with the interior of
the house. Hence, after some coughing and stamping, we elicited the
shyster, who came timorously forth, for all the world like a man in fear
of bodily assault, and then, recognising his guests, suffered from what
I can only call a nervous paroxysm of courtesy.

"Mr. Pinkerton and partner!" said he. "I will go and fetch you seats."

"Not the least," said Jim. "No time. Much rather stand. This is
business, Mr. Bellairs. This morning, as you know, I bought the wreck,
Flying Scud."

The lawyer nodded.

"And bought her," pursued my friend, "at a figure out of all proportion
to the cargo and