goodly and prominent proportions. He bowed, and Merton
invited him to be seated. It struck Merton as a singular circumstance
that his visitor wore on each arm the crimson badge of the newly
vaccinated.

Mr. Warren sat down, and, taking a red silk handkerchief out of the crown
of his hat, he wiped his countenance. The day was torrid, and Mr. Merton
hospitably offered an effervescent draught.

'Without the whisky, if you please, sir,' said Mr. Warren, in a
provincial accent. He pointed to a blue ribbon in the buttonhole of his
coat, indicating that he was conscientiously opposed to the use of
alcoholic refreshment in all its forms.

'Two glasses of Apollinaris water,' said Merton to the office-boy; and
the innocent fluid was brought, while Merton silently admired his
client's arrangement in blue and crimson. When the thirst of that
gentleman had been assuaged, he entered upon business thus:

'Sir, I am a man of principle!'

Merton congratulated him; the age was lax, he said, and principle was
needed. He wondered internally what he was going to be asked to
subscribe to, or whether his vote only was required.

'Sir, have you been vaccinated?' asked the client earnestly.

'Really,' said Merton, 'I do not quite understand your interest in a
matter so purely personal.'

'Personal, sir? Not at all. It is the first of public duties--the debt
that every man, woman, and child owes to his or her country. Have you
been vaccinated, sir?'

'Why, if you insist on knowing,' said Merton, 'I have, though I do not
see--'

'Recently?' asked the visitor.

'Yes, last month; but I cannot conjecture why--'

'Enough, sir,' said Mr. Warren. 'I am a man of principle. Had you not
done your duty in this matter by your country, I should have been
compelled to seek some other practitioner in your line.'

'I was not aware that my firm had any competitors in our line of
business,' said Merton. 'But perhaps you have come here under some
misapprehension. There is a firm of family solicitors on the floor
above, and next them are the offices of a company interested in a patent
explosive. If your affairs, or your political ideas, demand a legal
opinion, or an outlet in an explosive which is widely recommended by the
Continental Press--'

'For what do you take me, sir?' asked Mr. Warren.

'For a Temperance Anarchist,' Merton would have liked to reply, 'judging
by your colours'; but he repressed this retort, and mildly answere