d the responsible
office of clerk to Mr. James Short and several other learned gentlemen,
whose names appeared upon the door.

The infant regarded Eustace, when he opened the door, with a look of such
preternatural sharpness, that it almost frightened him. The beginning of
that eagle glance was full of inquiring hope, and the end of resigned
despair. The child had thought that Eustace might be a client come to
tread the paths which no client ever had trod. Hence the hope and the
despair in his eyes. Eustace had nothing of the solicitor's clerk about
him. Clearly he was not a client.

Mr. Short was in "that door to the right." Eustace knocked, and entered
into a bare little chamber about the size of a large housemaid's closet,
furnished with a table, three chairs (one a basket easy), and a
book-case, with a couple of dozen of law books, and some old volumes of
reports, and a broad window-sill, in the exact centre of which lay the
solitary and venerated brief.

Mr. James Short was a short, stout young man, with black eyes, a hooked
nose, and a prematurely bald head. Indeed, this baldness of the head was
the only distinguishing mark between James and John, and, therefore, a
thing to be thankful for, though, of course, useless to the perplexed
acquaintance who met them in the street when their hats were on. At the
moment of Eustace's entry Mr. Short had been engaged in studying that
intensely legal print, the _Sporting Times_, which, however, from some
unexplained bashfulness, he had hastily thrown under the table, filling
its space with a law book snatched at hazard from the shelf.

"All right, old fellow," said Eustace, whose quick eyes had caught the
quick flutter of the vanishing paper; "don't be alarmed, it's only me."

"Ah!" said Mr. James Short, when he had shaken hands with him, "you see I
thought that it might have been a client--a client is always possible,
however improbable, and one has to be ready to meet the possibility."

"Quite so, old fellow," said Eustace; "but do you know, as it happens, I
am a client--and a big one, too; it is a matter of two millions of
money--my uncle's fortune. There was another will, and I want to take
your advice."

Mr. Short fairly bounded out of the chair in exultation, and then, struck
by another thought, sank back into it again.

"My dear Meeson," he said, "I am sorry I cannot hear you."

"Eh," said Eustace; "what do you mean?"

"I mean that you are not accompanied by